Related papers: Resolving Sirius-like binaries with the Hubble Spa…

We report on the spectroscopic confirmation of 68 new bright ($G=13.5-17.2$ mag) and blue (pre-)white dwarfs (WDs). This finding has allowed us to almost double the number of the hottest ($T_{\mathrm{eff}} \geq 60$kK) known WDs brighter…

The project Massive Unseen Companions to Hot Faint Underluminous Stars from SDSS (MUCHFUSS) aims at finding hot subdwarf stars with massive compact companions (massive white dwarfs M>1.0 Msun, neutron stars or stellar mass black holes). The…

We report the discovery of 24 spectroscopic binary companions to giant stars. We fully constrain the orbital solution for 6 of these systems. We cannot unambiguously derive the orbital elements for the remaining stars because the phase…

Hot subdwarf stars with F-K main sequence binary companions have been known for decades, but the first orbital periods for such systems were published just recently. Current observations suggest that most have long periods, on the order of…

Discovery and characterisation of black holes (BHs), neutron stars (NSs), and white dwarfs (WDs) with detached luminous companions (LCs) in wide orbits are exciting because they are important test beds for dark remnant (DR) formation…

A new relative orbit solution with new dynamical masses is determined for the nearby white dwarf - red dwarf pair 40 Eri BC. The period is 230.09+/-0.68y. It is predicted to close slowly over the next half-century getting as close as 1.32"…

Using an Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) spectrum, we confirm the identification of a white dwarf companion to the B9.5V star 16 Dra (HD150100), and constrain its surface temperature to lie between 29,000K and 35,000K. This is the third…

For stars with unresolved companions, motions of the centre of light and that of mass decouple, causing a single-source astrometric model to perform poorly. We show that such stars can be easily detected with the reduced chi2 statistic, or…

Using the low-resolution mode of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) aboard the \emph{Hubble Space Telescope} (HST), we have obtained spatially resolved spectra of 20 ultracool dwarfs. 18 of them belong to 9 known very low-mass…

Planets and brown dwarfs in close orbits will interact with their host stars, as soon as the stars evolve to become red giants. However, the outcome of those interactions is still unclear. Recently, several brown dwarfs have been discovered…

We present a detailed analysis of five bright spectroscopic binary systems (HD 18665, HD 27131, HD 171852, HD 215550, HD 217427) that have orbital periods of P < 500 days. We determined the complete set of orbital parameters using the…

We report parallax and distance estimates for twelve more cataclysmic binaries and related objects observed with the 2.4m Hiltner telescope at MDM Observatory. The final parallax accuracy is typically about 1 mas. For only one of the twelve…

The project Massive Unseen Companions to Hot Faint Underluminous Stars from SDSS (muchfuss) aims to discover subdwarf-B stars with massive compact companions such as overmassive white dwarfs (M > 1.0 M_sun), neutron stars or black holes.…

We identified 46 unresolved source candidates in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, down to i775 = 29.5. Unresolved objects were identified using a parameter S, which measures the deviation from the curve-of-growth of a point source. Extensive…

Up to now, most planet search projects have concentrated on F to K stars. In order to considerably widen the view, we have stated a survey for planets of old, nearby brown dwarfs and very low mass stars. Using UVES, we have observed 26…

The project Massive Unseen Companions to Hot Faint Underluminous Stars from SDSS (MUCHFUSS) aims at finding sdBs with compact companions like supermassive white dwarfs (M>1.0 Msun), neutron stars or black holes. The existence of such…

Virtually all binaries consisting of a white dwarf with a non-degenerate companion can be classified as either close post-interaction systems (with orbital periods of a few days or less), or wide systems (with periods longer than decades),…

The third data release of Gaia was the first to include orbital solutions assuming non-single stars. Here, we apply the astrometric triage technique of Shahaf et al. to identify binary star systems with companions that are not single…

Hot subdwarf B (sdB) stars are post-main-sequence stars of high temperature and gravity. Approximately 30$\%$ of sdBs exhibit stable pressure and/or gravity-mode pulsations, which can be used via the timing method to test for companion…

Astrometric monitoring of the Sirius binary system over the past century has yielded several predictions for an unseen third system component, the most recent one suggesting a \leq50 MJup object in a ~6.3-year orbit around Sirius A. Here we…