Related papers: Asteroid Photometry with PIRATE: Optimizations and…
Time-resolved photometry of asteroids can be used for shape and spin reconstruction. If the number of measurements per asteroid is not sufficient to create a model, the whole data set can be used to reconstruct the distribution of shape…
Having a need to perform differential photometry for tens of thousands stars in a several square degrees field, we developed Astrokit program. The software corrects the star brightness variations caused by variations of atmospheric…
Context. Detecting regular dips in the light curve of a star is an easy way to detect the presence of an orbiting planet. COROT is a Franco-European mission launched at the end of 2006, and one of its main objectives is to detect planetary…
Automated sky surveys frequently report sparse-in-time multiband photometric observations of asteroids passing through their fields of view. Photometric data are currently available for tens of thousands of asteroids, and new data…
We present a method for calculating precise distances to asteroids using only two nights of data from a single location --- far too little for an orbit --- by exploiting the angular reflex motion of the asteroids due to Earth's axial…
Modern astronomical surveys detect asteroids by linking together their appearances across multiple images taken over time. This approach faces limitations in detecting faint asteroids and handling the computational complexity of trajectory…
WFIRST will conduct a coronagraphic program of characterizing the atmospheres of planets around bright nearby stars. When observed with the WFIRST Wide Field Camera, these stars will saturate the detector and produce very strong diffraction…
Although many near-Earth objects have been found by ground-based telescopes, some fast-moving ones, especially those near detection limits, have been missed by observatories. We developed a convolutional neural network for detecting faint…
The PHOT (Portable High-Speed Occultation Telescope) systems were developed for the specific purpose of observing stellar occultations by solar system objects. Stellar occultations have unique observing constraints: they may only be…
Microarcsecond (uas) astrometry is an indispensable technique to detect earth-like exoplanets, fully characterize exoplanetary orbits, and measure their masses --information critical for assessing their habitability. Highly accurate…
General arguments for optimized coronagraphy in the search for planets are presented. First, off-axis telescopes provide the best telescopic platforms for use with coronagraphy, and telescope fabrication technology now allows the…
Optical intensity interferometry, developed in the 1950s, is a simple and inexpensive method for achieving angular resolutions on microarcsecond scales. Its low sensitivity has limited intensity interferometric observations to bright stars…
On April 13, 2029, asteroid Apophis will pass within six Earth radii ($\sim$31000 km above surface), in the closest approach of this asteroid in recorded history. This event provides unique scientific opportunities to study the asteroid,…
We performed a statistical analysis of the astrometric errors for the major asteroid surveys. We analyzed the astrometric residuals as a function of observation epoch, observed brightness and rate of motion, finding that astrometric errors…
Digital co-addition of astronomical images is a common technique for increasing signal-to-noise and image depth. A modification of this simple technique has been applied to the detection of minor bodies in the Solar System: first stationary…
The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is a synoptic survey designed to explore the transient and variable sky in a wide variety of cadences. We use PTF observations of fields that were observed multiple times (>=10) per night, for several…
The accuracy of photometric calibration has gradually become a limiting factor in various fields of astronomy, limiting the scientific output of a host of research. Calibration using artificial light sources in low Earth orbit remains…
(Abridged) In this paper, we present a project of multi-channel wide-field optical sky monitoring system with high temporal resolution -- Small Aperture Imaging Network Telescope (SAINT) -- mostly built from off-the-shelf components and…
The irregular satellites of the giant planets are believed to have been captured during the evolution of the solar system. Knowing their physical parameters, such as size, density, and albedo is important for constraining where they came…
Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) in the 1-100 meter size range are estimated to be $\sim$1,000 times more numerous than the $\sim$15,000 currently-catalogued NEAs, most of which are in the 0.5-10 kilometer size range. Impacts from 10-100 meter…