Related papers: The Method of Visual Satellite Photometry
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.
We developed an automated method for sunspot detection using digital white-light solar images to achieve a performance similar to that of visual drawing observations in sunspot counting. To identify down to small, isolated spots correctly,…
In order to avoid collisions with space debris, the near Earth orbit must be continuously scanned by either ground- or spaced-based facilities. For the low Earth orbit, radar telescopes are the workhorse for this task, especially due to…
Astrometry provides the foundation for astrophysics. Accurate positions are required for the association of sources detected at different times or wavelengths, and distances are essential to estimate the size, luminosity, mass, and ages of…
The unprecedented precision of broadband stellar photometry achieved with the planet-hunting missions CoRoT and \textit{Kepler} initiated a new era in examining the magnetically-driven brightness variations of hundreds of thousands of…
We show that distances of objects at cosmological distances can be measured directly using interferometry. Our approach to interferometric parallax comes from analysis of 4-point amplitude and intensity correlations that can be generated…
Combining visual observations of SR variables with measurements of them using a photoelectric photometer is discussed then demonstrated using data obtained for the bright, southern SR variable theta Aps. Combining such observations is…
The Earth observation satellites have been monitoring the earth's surface for a long time, and the images taken by the satellites contain large amounts of valuable data. However, it is extremely hard work to manually analyze such huge data.…
The mean of 430 visual magnitudes of VisorSats adjusted to a distance of 550-km (the operational altitude) is 5.92 +/-0.04. This is the characteristic brightness of these satellites when observed at zenith. VisorSats average 1.29 magnitudes…
Star trackers are primarily optical devices that are used to estimate the attitude of a spacecraft by recognising and tracking star patterns. Currently, most star trackers use conventional optical sensors. In this application paper, we…
Diffuse glow has been observed around brightly lit cities in nighttime satellite imagery since at least the first publication of large scale maps in the late 1990s. In the literature, this has often been assumed to be an error related to…
Gaps in space weather observations that can be addressed with small satellites are identified. Potential improvements in solar inputs to space weather models, space radiation control, estimations of energy budget of the upper Earth's…
A long-held astronomical vision is to realize diffraction-limited optical aperture synthesis over kilometer baselines. This will enable imaging of stellar surfaces and their environments, show their evolution over time, and reveal…
Astronomical images are of crucial importance for astronomers since they contain a lot of information about celestial bodies that can not be directly accessible. Most of the information available for the analysis of these objects starts…
We present a new method for quantifying the abundance of satellites around field galaxies and in groups. The method is designed to work with samples, such as local photometric redshift catalogues, that do not have full spectroscopic…
With the advent of optical interferometers that will be coming online in the next decade, radial velocity searches for extra-solar planets will be complemented by high angular resolution astrometric measurements. In this paper, we explore…
A satellite image is a remotely sensed image data, where each pixel represents a specific location on earth. The pixel value recorded is the reflection radiation from the earth's surface at that location. Multispectral images are those that…
This paper addresses the question of the observations to be performed with the Optical Monitor (OM) of the X-ray Multi-Mirror Satellite (XMM) under several aspects. First, we discuss XMM-OM's photometric system and its colour…
Current and future large astronomical surveys will yield multiparameter databases on millions or even billions of objects. The scientific exploitation of these will require powerful, robust, and automated classification tools tailored to…
CubeSats are small satellites built in standard sizes and form factors, which have been growing in popularity but have thus far been largely ignored within the field of astronomy. When deployed as space-based telescopes, they enable science…