Related papers: The MONS Star Trackers
Space astrometry is capable of sub-microarcsecond measurements of star positions. A hundred visits over several years could yield relative astrometric precision of ~0.1 uas, below the astrometric signature (0.3 uas) of a Sun-Earth system at…
In its all-sky survey, the ESA global astrometry mission Gaia will perform high-precision astrometry and photometry for 1 billion stars down to $V = 20$ mag. The data collected in the Gaia catalogue, to be published by the end of the next…
Several on-going and future experiments use a Stokes polarimeter (i.e. a rotating wave plate followed by a steady polarizer and by an unpolarized detector) to measure the small polarized component of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The…
Searching for exoplanets with different methods has always been the focus of astronomers over the past few years. Among multiple planet detection techniques, astrometry stands out for its capability to accurately determine the orbital…
The past few years have seen great progress in observing oscillations in solar-type stars, lying on or just above the main sequence. We review the most recent results, most of which were obtained using high-precision velocity measurements.…
UVMag is a medium-size space telescope equipped with a high-resolution spectropolarimeter working in the UV and visible domains. It will be proposed to ESA for a future M mission. It will allow scientists to study all types of stars as well…
Direct Sun light absorption by trace gases can be used to quantify them and investigate atmospheric chemistry. In such experiments, the main optical apparatus is often a grating or a Fourier transform spectrometer. A solar tracker based on…
An attitude determination system for balloon-borne experiments is presented. The system provides pointing information in azimuth and elevation for instruments flying on stratospheric balloons over Antarctica. In-flight attitude is given by…
We discuss several results made possible by accurate SDSS astrometric measurements in a large sky area, with emphasis on asteroids and stellar proper motions obtained by comparing POSS and SDSS. SDSS has observed over 200,000 moving objects…
Astrometric issues for solar system studies are discussed. An overview gives references and cover all aspects of the solar system where astrometry is important: orbits of planets, moons, asteroids and NEOs, masses of asteroids, occultations…
The PHOT (Portable High-Speed Occultation Telescope) systems were developed for the specific purpose of observing stellar occultations by solar system objects. Stellar occultations have unique observing constraints: they may only be…
Usually, positions of spacecraft on interplanetary or deep space missions are determined by radar tracking from ground stations, a method by which uncertainty increases with distance from Earth. As an alternative, a spacecraft equipped with…
EarthFinder is a Probe Mission concept selected for study by NASA for input to the 2020 astronomy decadal survey. This study is currently active and a final white paper report is due to NASA at the end of calendar 2018. We are tasked with…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a NASA-sponsored Explorer mission that will perform a wide-field survey for planets that transit bright host stars. Here, we predict the properties of the transiting planets that TESS will…
The Sun is an active star that can have a direct impact on the Earth, its magnetosphere, and the technological infrastructure on which modern society depends. Among the phenomena that drive "space weather" are fast solar wind streams and…
The Steward Observatory LEO Satellite Photometric Survey is a comprehensive observational survey to characterize the apparent brightness of the Starlink and OneWeb low Earth orbit satellites and evaluate the potential impact on astronomy.…
We present the results of a study along with a first prototype of a high precision system (? 1 arcsec) for pointing and tracking light (near-infrared) telescopes on board stratospheric balloons. Such a system is essentially composed by a…
The recently launched NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission is going to collect lightcurves for a few hundred million of stars and we expect to increase the number of pulsating stars to analyze compared to the few…
The modulation of high-energy transients' (or steadily emitting sources') light curves due to the imperfect alignment of the detector's view axis with the spin axis in a spin-stabilized satellite is derived. It is shown how the orientation…
This paper presents a list of suggested stars for radial velocity measurements. We explain here in brief the research project for which the radial velocity of the "slow movers" i.e. small proper motion stars are necessary. Basing on this…