Related papers: Monitoring Variability of the Sky
Large digital sky surveys, over a broad range of wavelengths, both from the ground and from space observatories, are becoming a major source of astronomical data. Some examples include the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Digital…
We describe the development of a system for an automated, iterative, real-time classification of transient events discovered in synoptic sky surveys. The system under development incorporates a number of Machine Learning techniques, mostly…
Astronomy has a long history of acquiring, systematizing, and interpreting large quantities of data. Starting from the earliest sky atlases through the first major photographic sky surveys of the 20th century, this tradition is continuing…
Time-resolved ground-based surveys in general, and photometric ones in particular, have played a crucial role in building up our knowledge of the properties, physical nature, and the very existence of the many different classes of variable…
In recent years, significant advances in computer vision have also propelled progress in remote sensing. Concurrently, the use of drones has expanded, with many organizations incorporating them into their operations. Most drones are…
In many astrophysical systems, smoothly-varying large-scale variations coexist with small-scale fluctuations. For example, a large-scale velocity or density gradient can exist in molecular clouds that exhibit small-scale turbulence. In…
We report the main results of our six year long intensive optical monitoring on blazars ON 231 (W Com), BL Lac, and 3C 273. Intensive optical monitoring is an indispensable tool to obtain well sampled light curves and thus to understand the…
Adaptive Optics is a prime example of how progress in observational astronomy can be driven by technological developments. At many observatories it is now considered to be part of a standard instrumentation suite, enabling ground-based…
The transient sky is composed of diverse phenomena that exhibits dramatic changes on short timescales. These events range from sub-second bursts to weeks and month timescale variability from compact systems. Several challenges need to be…
Over the past decade, the Internet of Things and smart devices have become increasingly common as part of the technological infrastructure that surrounds us. The flow of data generated by these systems is characterized by enormous…
Variability Search Toolkit (VaST) is a software package designed to find variable objects in a series of sky images. It can be run from a script or interactively using its graphical interface. VaST relies on source list matching as opposed…
Results of the first two month of observations using the All Sky Automated Survey prototype camera are presented. More than 45 000 stars in 24 Selected Fields covering 140 sq. degrees were monitored a few times a night resulting in the…
We describe a system for rapidly measuring the brightness of the night sky using a mosaic of CCD images obtained with a low-cost automated system. The portable system produces millions of independent photometric measurements covering the…
An overview of pulsating variable stars across the observational Hertzprung-Russel (HR) diagram is presented, together with a summary of their global properties. The HR diagram is presented with a third colour-coded dimension, visualizing…
By digitizing astronomical photographic plates one may extract full information stored on them, something that could not be practically achieved with classical analogue methods. We are developing algorithms for variable objects search using…
Sky coverage is one of the most important pieces of information about astronomical observations. We discuss possible representations, and present algorithms to create and manipulate shapes consisting of generalized spherical polygons with…
Phase resolved observations of planetary bodies allow us to understand the longitudinal and latitudinal variations that make each one unique. Rotational variations have been detected in several types of astronomical bodies beyond those of…
This is a personal review of various issues related to massive photometric and astrometric searches. A complete inventory of variable stars down to almost any magnitude limit will improve our understanding of the stellar evolution and the…
We review some of the scientific opportunities and technical challenges posed by the exploration of the large digital sky surveys, in the context of a Virtual Observatory (VO). The VO paradigm will profoundly change the way observational…
Since its inception in the early 2000, the Virtual Observatory (VO), developed as a collaboration of many national and international projects, has become a major factor in the discovery and dissemination of astronomical information…