Related papers: Astrosat: Forecasting satellite transits for optic…
In recent years, gravitational lensing has been used as a means to detect substructure in galaxy-sized halos, via anomalous flux ratios in quadruply-imaged lenses. In addition to causing anomalous flux ratios, substructure may also perturb…
Observed properties of stars and planets in binary/multiple star systems provide clues to planet formation and evolution. We extended our survey for visual stellar companions to the hosts of transiting exoplanets by 21 stars, using the…
High-contrast observations in optical and infrared astronomy are defined as any observation requiring a technique to reveal a celestial object of interest that is in such close angular proximity to another source brighter by a factor of at…
Since July 2014, the ESA Gaia mission has been surveying the entire sky down to magnitude 20.7 in the visible. In addition to the millions of stars, thousands of Solar System Objects (SSOs) are observed daily. By comparing their positions…
The WFIRST microlensing mission will measure precise light curves and relative parallaxes for millions of stars, giving it the potential to characterize short-period transiting planets all along the line of sight and into the galactic…
In images collected by astronomical surveys, stars and galaxies often overlap visually. Deblending is the task of distinguishing and characterizing individual light sources in survey images. We propose StarNet, a Bayesian method to deblend…
Unfettered access to dark night skies is rapidly diminishing, due to light pollution and satellite mega-constellations tracks. Scientists should wake up and do more to stand up to Big Light and Big Space and preserve this natural resource.
A transiting planet invites us to measure its size, mass, orbital parameters, atmospheric composition, and other characteristics. But the invitation can only be accepted if the host star is bright enough for precise measurements of its flux…
Using Hyper Suprime Camera data (a precursor of what is to come with Rubin Observatory) we assess trail masking mitigation strategies for satellite contamination. We examine HSC data of the Hubble COSMOS field where satellite trails have…
The study of satellite galaxies can provide information on the merging and aggregation processes which, according to the hierarchical clustering models, form the larger spiral galaxies we observe. With the aim of testing hierarchical models…
Satellite missions demand ever greater connectivity, especially in the LEO regime. In this paper, we introduce the new mega-constellation services in space paradigm: we show that megaconstellations, deployed to offer innovative services to…
We propose a method to account for the Earth oblateness effect in preliminary orbit determination of satellites in low orbits with radar observations. This method is an improvement of the one described in (Gronchi et al 2015), which uses a…
SatHub is one of the four hubs of the IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS). It focuses on observations, data analysis, software, and training materials to improve our…
The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) observes the visible sky every night in search of dangerous asteroids. With four soon five) sites ATLAS is facing new challenges for scheduling observations and linking detections to…
Large Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations (e.g., Starlink and Iridium) significantly increase the likelihood of transient, high-power interference events at ground receivers. This report presents SatTrack, a GUI-driven simulation framework…
The spatial distribution of satellite galaxies around host galaxies can illuminate the relationship between satellites and dark matter subhalos and aid in developing and testing galaxy formation models. Previous efforts to constrain the…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is the latest observational effort to find exoplanets and map bright transient optical phenomena. Supernovae (SN) are particularly interesting as cosmological standard candles for…
Europe and a number of countries in the world are investing significant amounts of public money to operate and maintain large, ground-based astronomical facilities. Even larger projects are under development to observe the faintest and most…
Transits of bright stars offer a unique opportunity to study detailed properties of extrasolar planets that cannot be determined through radial-velocity observations. We propose a new technique to find such systems using all-sky…
We present a unique method that allows the LSST to scan the sky for stellar variability on short timescales. The operational component of the strategy requires LSST to take star trail images. The image processing component uses deep…