Related papers: The SOFIA Telescope
The Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) aboard the Hinode satellite (formerly called Solar-B) consists of the Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA) and the Focal Plane Package (FPP). The OTA is a 50 cm diffraction-limited Gregorian telescope, and the…
Gaia is a very ambitious mission of the European Space Agency. At the heart of Gaia lie the measurements of the positions, distances, space motions, brightnesses and astrophysical parameters of stars, which represent fundamental pillars of…
Fiber-fed spectrographs dedicated to observing massive portions of the sky are increasingly being more demanded within the astronomical community. For all the fiber-fed instruments, the primordial and common problem is the positioning of…
The large instantaneous sensitivity, a wide frequency coverage and flexible observation modes with large number of beams in the sky are the main features of the SKA observatory's two telescopes, the SKA-Low and the SKA-Mid, which are…
Optical long-baseline interferometry is a unique and powerful technique for astronomical research. Since 2004, optical interferometers have produced an increasing number of scientific papers covering various fields of astrophysics. As…
X-ray observatories contribute fundamental advances in Solar System studies by probing Sun-object interactions, developing planet and satellite surface composition maps, probing global magnetospheric dynamics, and tracking astrochemical…
Nuclear astrophysics, the union of nuclear physics and astronomy, went through an impressive expansion during the last twenty years. This could be achieved thanks to milestone improvements in astronomical observations, cross section…
Astronomical instrumentation is most of the time faced with challenging requirements in terms of sensitivity, stability, complexity, etc., and therefore leads to high performance developments that at first sight appear to be suitable only…
During recent years, bibliometric studies have become increasingly important in evaluating individual scientists, institutes, and entire observatories. In astronomy, often librarians are involved in maintaining publication databases and…
The importance of laser guide stars to the practical usefulness of adaptive optics cannot be understated, and yet there are very few working systems. This contribution discusses the current status of the ALFA laser guide star, with regard…
Astronomy and related fields are at the forefront of science and technology; answering fundamental questions and driving innovation. Although blue-skies research like astronomy rarely contributes directly with tangible outcomes on a short…
Astronomy provides a laboratory for extreme physics, a window into environments at extremes of distance, temperature and density that often can't be reproduced in Earth laboratories, or at least not right away. A surprising amount of the…
In the distant past, telescopes were known, first and foremost, for the sizes of their apertures. Advances in technology are now enabling astronomers to build extremely powerful instruments to the extent that instruments have now achieved…
The solar atmosphere is full of complicated transients manifesting the reconfiguration of solar magnetic field and plasma. Solar jets represent collimated, beam-like plasma ejections; they are ubiquitous in the solar atmosphere and…
This paper reports on the current status of the World Space Observatory WSO-UV, a space mission for UV astronomy, planned for launch at the beginning of next decade. It is based on a 1.7 m telescope, with focal plane instruments including…
ALMA provides the necessary spatial, temporal and spectral resolution to explore central questions in contemporary solar physics with potentially far-reaching implications for stellar atmospheres and plasma physics. It can uniquely…
The contemporary astronomy is flooded with an exponentially growing petabyte-scaled data volumes produced by powerful ground and space-based instrumentation as well as a product of extensive computer simulations and computations of complex…
Operation of the US Virtual Astronomical Observatory shares some issues with modern physical observatories, e.g., intimidating data volumes and rapid technological change, and must also address unique concerns like the lack of direct…
In nature there are various pairs of observed phenomena and observing scientific techniques which are elegantly coupled with each other. A very general and well known example is the fact that the metal we use to build telescopes were once…
Active optics is defined as the control of the shape and the alignment of the components of an optical system at low temporal frequencies. For modern large telescopes with flexible monolithic or segmented primary mirrors and also flexible…