Related papers: Stellector: a laser aided night sky explorer for t…
In this article, a floating robotic emulation platform for a virtual demonstration of satellite motion in space is presented. The robotic platform design is characterized by its friction-less, levitating, yet planar motion over a…
Proper interpretation and understanding of astronomical data requires good knowledge of the data acquisition process. The increase in remote observing, queue observing, and the availability of large archived data products risk insulating…
The observation of blank fields, regions of the sky devoid of stars down to a given threshold magnitude, constitutes one of the typical important calibration procedures required for the proper reduction of astronomical data obtained in…
Observational astrophysics uses sophisticated technology to collect and measure electromagnetic and other radiation from beyond the Earth. Modern observatories produce large, complex datasets and extracting the maximum possible information…
There are numerous advantages to exploiting diffraction-limited instrumentation at astronomical observatories, which include smaller footprints, less mechanical and thermal instabilities and high levels of performance. To realize such…
We introduce Aster, an AI agent for autonomous scientific discovery capable of operating over 20 times faster than existing frameworks. Given a task, an initial program, and a script to evaluate the performance of the program, Aster…
Support for early career astronomers who are just beginning to explore astronomy research is imperative to increase retention of diverse practitioners in the field. Since 2010, Astrobites has played an instrumental role in engaging members…
This paper focuses on the mission design for the Laser Astrometric Test Of Relativity (LATOR). This mission uses laser interferometry between two micro-spacecraft whose lines of sight pass close by the Sun to accurately measure deflection…
The traditional celestial navigation system (CNS) is used the moon, stars, and planets as celestial guides. Then the star tracker (i.e. track one star or planet or angle between it) and star sensor (i.e. sense many star simultaneous) be…
We present the Telepresence Lantern concept, developed to provide opportunities for older adults to stay in contact with remote family and friends. It provides a new approach to video-mediated communication, designed to facilitate natural…
Astronomers measure cosmic distances to objects beyond our own galaxy using standard candles: objects of known intrinsic brightness, whose apparent brightnesses in the sky are then taken as an indication of their distances from the…
Synthesizer is a fast, flexible, modular, and extensible Python package that empowers astronomers to turn theoretical galaxy models into realistic synthetic observations - including spectra, photometry, images, and spectral cubes - with a…
We present Synthesizer, a fast, flexible, modular and extensible platform for modelling synthetic astrophysical observables. Synthesizer can be used for a number of applications, but is predominantly designed for generating mock observables…
We have developed a low-cost off-the-shelf component star sensor (StarSense) for use in minisatellites and CubeSats to determine the attitude of a satellite in orbit. StarSense is an imaging camera with a limiting magnitude of 6.5, which…
The widespread dissemination of machine learning tools in science, particularly in astronomy, has revealed the limitation of working with simple single-task scenarios in which any task in need of a predictive model is looked in isolation,…
Fast moving celestial objects are characterized by velocities across the celestial sphere that significantly differ from the motions of background stars. In observational images, these objects exhibit distinct shapes, contrasting with the…
We present Phaser, a flexible system that directs narrow-beam laser light to moving robots for concurrent wireless power delivery and communication. We design a semi-automatic calibration procedure to enable fusion of stereo-vision-based 3D…
Virtual locomotion remains a challenge in VR, especially in space-limited environments where room-scale walking is impractical. We present LocoScooter, a low-cost, deployable locomotion interface combining foot-sliding on a compact…
Machine learning has rapidly become a tool of choice for the astronomical community. It is being applied across a wide range of wavelengths and problems, from the classification of transients to neural network emulators of cosmological…
This article introduces a set of distance education astronomy laboratory exercises for use by college students and instructors and discuss first usage results. This General Astronomy Education Source (GEAS) exercise set contains eight…