Related papers: Accurate uncertainty estimation in crowded fields:…
The accuracy in the photometry of a point source depends on the point-spread function (PSF), detector pixelization, and observing strategy. The PSF and pixel response describe the spatial blurring of the source, the pixel scale describes…
We present PyGFit, a program designed to measure PSF-matched photometry from images with disparate pixel scales and PSF sizes. While PyGFit has a number of uses, its primary purpose is to extract robust spectral energy distributions (SEDs)…
We present a rigorous mathematical solution to photometric redshift estimation and the more general inversion problem. The challenge we address is to meaningfully constrain unknown properties of astronomical sources based on given…
(Abridged) We describe a new method to extract spectra of stars from observations of crowded stellar fields with integral field spectroscopy (IFS). Our approach extends the well-established concept of crowded field photometry in images into…
Simulated images are essential in algorithm development and instrument testing for optical telescopes. During real observations, images obtained by optical telescopes are affected by spatially variable point spread functions (PSFs), a…
Point spread function (PSF) reconstruction (PSF-R) is a well established technique to determine reliably and accurately the PSF from Adaptive Optics (AO) control loop data. We have successfully applied this technique to improve the…
The knowledge of the exact structure of the optical system PSF enables a high-quality image reconstruction in fluorescence microscopy. Accurate PSF models account for the vector nature of light and the phase and amplitude modifications.…
We present a method for speckle holography that is optimised for crowded fields. Its two key features are an iterativ improvement of the instantaneous Point Spread Functions (PSFs) extracted from each speckle frame and the (optional)…
The familiar tools of Fourier analysis and Fisher matrices are applied to derive the uncertainties on photometric, astrometric, and weak-lensing measurements of stars and galaxies in real astronomical images. Many effects or functions that…
The principal limitation in many areas of astronomy, especially for directly imaging exoplanets, arises from instability in the point spread function (PSF) delivered by the telescope and instrument. To understand the transfer function, it…
Orbital solutions for binary or multiple stellar systems that combine astrometry (e.g., position angles and angular separations) with spectroscopy (radial velocities) have important advantages over astrometric-only or spectroscopic-only…
The key features of the MATPHOT algorithm for precise and accurate stellar photometry and astrometry using discrete Point Spread Functions are described. A discrete Point Spread Function (PSF) is a sampled version of a continuous PSF which…
Stacking analysis is a means of detecting faint sources using a priori position information to estimate an aggregate signal from individually undetected objects. Confusion severely limits the effectiveness of stacking in deep surveys with…
Photometric redshifts play an important role as a measure of distance for various cosmological topics. Spectroscopic redshifts are only available for a very limited number of objects but can be used for creating statistical models. A broad…
Astrometric precision and knowledge of the point spread function are key ingredients for a wide range of astrophysical studies including time-delay cosmography in which strongly lensed quasar systems are used to determine the Hubble…
The determination of chemical abundances from stellar spectra is considered a mature field of astrophysics. Digital spectra of stars are recorded and processed with standard techniques, much like samples in the biological sciences.…
Massively multiplexed spectrographs will soon gather large statistical samples of stellar spectra. The accurate estimation of uncertainties on derived parameters, such as line-of-sight velocity $v_\mathrm{los}$, especially for spectra with…
The search for exoplanets is an active field in astronomy, with direct imaging as one of the most challenging methods due to faint exoplanet signals buried within stronger residual starlight. Successful detection requires advanced image…
High-fidelity spectroscopy presents challenges for both observations and in designing instruments. High-resolution and high-accuracy spectra are required for verifying hydrodynamic stellar atmospheres and for resolving intergalactic…
To determine the precise positions of stars in CCD frames, various centering algorithms have been proposed for astrometry. The effective point spread function (ePSF) and the Gaussian centering algorithms are two representative centering…