Related papers: Visual Magnitude of the BlueWalker 3 Satellite
For the majority of optical observing programs, the sky brightness provides the fundamental limit to signal detection such that the scientific feasibility is largely dictated by the moon phase. Since most observatories do not have the…
This paper presents optical night sky brightness measurements from the stratosphere using CCD images taken with the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT). The data used for estimating the backgrounds were obtained during…
The Sunrise balloon-borne solar observatory consists of a 1m aperture Gregory telescope, a UV filter imager, an imaging vector polarimeter, an image stabilization system and further infrastructure. The first science flight of Sunrise…
The observed population of the Milky Way satellite galaxies offer a unique testing ground for galaxy formation theory on small-scales. Our novel approach was to investigate the clustering of the known Milky Way satellite galaxies and to…
Observing artificial satellites is a relatively new and unique branch of astronomy that is very interesting and dynamic. One specific aspect of observing these objects is that although they appear amongst the celestial background, as…
We present the results of photometric observations of the mutual phenomena in the system of Galilean satellites obtained during 2014-2015. The observations were performed using the 26-inch refractor, Normal Astrograph, ZA-320 telescope of…
We describe the physical characteristics of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, discovered on 2025 July 1 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. The comet has eccentricity, $e$ $\simeq$ 6.08 and velocity at infinity, v$_{\infty}$…
Starlink satellites can become extremely bright when sunlight reflects specularly to an observer on the ground. The observed brightness of such flares is consistent with a bidirectional reflectance function of the Starlink satellite…
We present the discovery of a faint Milky Way satellite, Laevens 2/Triangulum II, found in the Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS 1) 3 pi imaging data and confirmed with follow-up wide-field photometry from the…
The high-resolution, SPH galaxies of the McMaster Unbiased Galaxy Survey (MUGS) are used to examine the satellite systems of sixteen model host galaxies. Each galaxy has a different mass, angular momentum and merger history that yield a…
One of the instruments aboard the Sunrise III mission, the Tunable Magnetograph (TuMag), is a tunable imaging spectropolarimeter in visible wavelengths. It is designed to probe the vector magnetic field and the line-of-sight velocity of the…
The new Starlink V2 satellites incorporate improvements to the chassis brightness through dielectric mirrors, off-pointing solar arrays, and black paint on exposed components. For the general case in which the reflectivities are initially…
We present high angular resolution observations of the third known interstellar interloper, 3I/ATLAS, from the Hubble Space Telescope. The object is clearly active at 3.8 au pre-perihelion, showing dust emitted from the hot Sun-facing side…
We report on optical-near-infrared photopolarimetric observations of a blazar 3C 454.3 over 200 d. The object experienced an optical outburst in July 2007. This outburst was followed by a short state fainter than $V=15.2$ mag lasting $\sim…
At low redshifts, dust-obscured quasars often have strong yet narrow permitted lines in the rest-frame optical and ultraviolet, excited by the central active nucleus, earning the designation Type II quasars. We present a sample of 145…
We present the results of an adaptive optics survey for faint companions among Galactic O-type star systems (V < 8) using the Advanced Electro-Optical System (AEOS) 3.6-meter telescope on Haleakala. We surveyed these O star systems in…
The number of satellites on low orbit has dramatically increased over the past years, raising concerns among the astronomical community about their impact on observations. Spectroscopic observations represent a large fraction of…
Existing and planned optical telescopes and surveys can detect artificially-illuminated objects comparable in total brightness to a major terrestrial city out to the outskirts of the Solar System. Orbital parameters of Kuiper belt objects…
Optical polarisation measurements are key tests for different models of the pulsar magnetosphere. Furthermore, comparing the relative orientation of the phase-averaged linear polarisation direction and the pulsar proper motion vector may…
We report the discovery of an ultra-faint Milky Way satellite galaxy in the constellation of Pegasus. The concentration of stars was detected by applying our overdensity detection algorithm to the SDSS-DR 10 and confirmed with deeper…