Related papers: Multi-Wavelength Photometry Derived from Monochrom…
Difference imaging or image subtraction is a method that measures differential photometry by matching the pointing and point-spread function (PSF) between image frames. It is used for the detection of time-variable phenomena. Here we…
In the exoplanetary era, the Kepler spacecraft is causing a revolution by discovering thousands of new planet candidates. However, a follow up program is needed in order to reject false candidates and to fully characterize the bona-fide…
Weak gravitational lensing is a promising probe of dark matter and dark energy requiring accurate measurement of the shapes of faint, distant galaxies. Such measures are hindered by the finite resolution and pixel scale of typical cameras.…
High-resolution ground-based optical speckle and near-infrared adaptive optics images are taken to search for stars in close angular proximity to host stars of candidate planets identified by the NASA Kepler Mission. Neighboring stars are a…
Spectroscopy requires high-precision wavelength discrimination but typically requires bulky, alignment-sensitive instrumentation. To address this, we present a compact computational spectrometer built from a single germanium PN photodiode.…
The Kepler Mission relies on precise differential photometry to detect the 80 parts per million (ppm) signal from an Earth-Sun equivalent transit. Such precision requires superb instrument stability on time scales up to ~2 days and…
Imaging with a layered superlens is a spatial filtering operation characterized by the point spread function (PSF). We show that in the same optical system the image of a narrow sub-wavelength Gaussian incident field may be surprisingly…
We measure and model the wavelength dependence of the PSF in the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program (SSP) survey. We find that PSF chromaticity is present in that redder stars appear smaller than bluer stars in the $g, r,$ and…
During the primary Kepler mission, between 2009 and 2013, about 150,000 pre-selected targets were observed with a 29.42 minute-long cadence. However, a survey of background stars that fall within the field of view (FOV) of the downloaded…
(Abridged) NASA's Kepler mission has provided several thousand transiting planet candidates, yet only a small subset have been confirmed as true planets. Therefore, the most fundamental question about these candidates is the fraction of…
Cosmic shear requires high precision measurement of galaxy shapes in the presence of the observational Point Spread Function (PSF) that smears out the image. The PSF must therefore be known for each galaxy to a high accuracy. However, for…
Upcoming space-based photometric satellites offer the possibility of detecting continuum flux variability at the micro-magnitude level. We show that the Doppler flux variability induced by the reflex motion of stars due to planetary…
Stellar magnetic activity produces time-varying distortions in the photospheric line profiles of solar-type stars. These lead to systematic errors in high-precision radial-velocity measurements, which limit efforts to discover and measure…
The ~ 200,000 stars observed by the Kepler mission have provided unprecedented constraints across astrophysics. With the advent of modern spectroscopic and photometric surveys, new limits in stellar characterizations are within reach. In…
The fine precision of photometric data available from missions like Kepler provide researchers with the ability to measure changes in light on the order of tens of parts per million (ppm). This level of precision allows researchers to…
Using the OSIRIS instrument installed on the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) we acquired multi-color transit photometry of four small (Rp < 5 R_Earth) short-period (P < 6 days) planet candidates recently identified by the Kepler space…
The characterisation of detached eclipsing binaries with low mass components has become important when verifying the role of convection in stellar evolutionary models, which requires model-independent measurements of stellar parameters with…
In astronomy, upcoming space telescopes with wide-field optical instruments have a spatially varying point spread function (PSF). Specific scientific goals require a high-fidelity estimation of the PSF at target positions where no direct…
The mutual orbital alignment in multiple planetary systems is an important parameter for understanding their formation. There are a number of elaborate techniques to determine the alignment parameters using photometric or spectroscopic…
We measure the binarity of detached M-dwarfs in the Kepler field with orbital periods in the range of 1-90 days. Kepler's photometric precision and nearly continuous monitoring of stellar targets over time baselines ranging from 3 months to…