Related papers: Saving Astronomical Treasures
It is argued that the astronomy of the twenty-first century will be dominated by computer-based manipulation of huge homogeneous surveys of various types of astronomical objects. Furthermore combination of all observations with large…
Africa has amazing potential due to natural (such as dark sky) and human resources for scientific research in astronomy and space science. At the same time, the continent is still facing many difficulties, and its countries are now…
In an age of media saturation, how can astronomers succeed in grabbing the public's attention to increase awareness and understanding of astronomy? Here I discuss some creative alternatives to press releases, public lectures, television…
An array of large observational programs using ground-based and space-borne telescopes is planned in the next decade. The forthcoming wide-field sky surveys are expected to deliver a sheer volume of data exceeding an exabyte. Processing the…
Astronomy is increasingly encountering two fundamental truths: (1) The field is faced with the task of extracting useful information from extremely large, complex, and high dimensional datasets; (2) The techniques of astroinformatics and…
In this paper we address the consumption of energy by astronomers while performing their professional duties. Although we find that astronomy uses a negligible fraction of the US energy budget, the rate at which energy is consumed by an…
Astronomical observing has been greatly simplified by the development and implementation of digital imaging techniques and remote observing. Aperture photometry of CCD data permits photometric measurements to be made routinely with…
Sky surveys represent a fundamental data basis for astronomy. We use them to map in a systematic way the universe and its constituents, and to discover new types of objects or phenomena. We review the subject, with an emphasis on the…
Just as the astronomical "Time Domain" is a catch-phrase for a diverse group of different science objectives involving time-varying phenomena in all astrophysical regimes from the solar system to cosmological scales, so the "Virtual…
The historical development of ground based astronomical telescopes leads us to expect that space-based astronomical telescopes will need to be operational for many decades. The exchange of scientific instruments in space will be a…
The past two decades have seen a tremendous investment in observational facilities that promise to reveal new and unprecedented discoveries about the universe. In comparison, the investment in theoretical work is completely dwarfed, even…
The current and prospective status of astronomical research in Ukraine is discussed. A brief history of astronomical research in Ukraine is presented and the system organizing scientific activity is described, including astronomy education,…
While both society and astronomy have evolved greatly over the past fifty years, the academic institutions and incentives that shape our field have remained largely stagnant. As a result, the astronomical community is faced with several…
Variability in the sky has been known for centuries, even millennia, but our knowledge of it is very incomplete even at the bright end. Current technology makes it possible to built small, robotic optical instruments, to record images and…
A (subjective) overview of Internet resources relevant to professional astronomers is given. Special emphasis is put on databases of astronomical objects and servers providing general information, e.g. on astronomical catalogues, finding…
The Plate Archive of the Cordoba Observatory includes 20.000 photographs and spectra on glass plates dating from 1893 to 1983. This contribution describes the work performed since the plate archive was transferred to the Observatory Library…
The 2020s will be the most data-rich decade of astronomy in history. As the scale and complexity of our surveys increase, the problem of scheduling becomes more critical. We must develop high-quality scheduling approaches, implement them as…
The Universe is almost totally unexplored at low surface brightness levels. In spite of great progress in the construction of large telescopes and improvements in the sensitivity of detectors, the limiting surface brightness of imaging…
Since the CCD technique became financially reachable for amateur astronomers, they can cover topics of professional science. Mainly in the time-domain astronomy, such as variable star research, their help is invaluable. We focus on…
Fast astronomical transients were observed by the VASCO Project (Villarroel et al 2020) in photographic sky surveys conducted in the 1950s. Those searches analyzed the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-I and POSS-II) digitized plates. In…