Related papers: Reduction of CCD observations with scanning Fabry-…
We describe the technique of spectropolarimetric observations allowing for the measurements of the Stokes parameters in one of the observational modes of the SCORPIO focal reducer of the 6-m BTA telescope of the SAO RAS. The characteristics…
Using the submm array camera SCUBA on the 15-m JCMT it is now possible to conduct unbiased submm surveys and quantify the level of star-formation activity in the young Universe by observing the rest-frame FIR thermal emission from dust in…
The next generation of solar telescopes will enable us to resolve the fundamental scales of the solar atmosphere, i.e., the pressure scale height and the photon mean free path. High-resolution observations of small-scale structures with…
We present Fabry-Perot absorption-line spectroscopy of the SB0 galaxy NGC 7079. This is the first use of Fabry-Perot techniques to measure the two-dimensional stellar kinematics of an early-type disk galaxy. We scan the infrared CaII line…
We present a means of characterizing and removing internal reflections between the CCD and other optical surfaces in an astronomical camera. The stellar reflections appear as out-of-focus images and are not necessarily axisymmetric about…
Group delay fringe tracking using spectrally-dispersed fringes is suitable for stabilising the optical path difference in ground-based astronomical optical interferometers in low light situations. We discuss the performance of group delay…
A description is given of the activities of an international working group created with the aim of obtaining both photometric and astrometric observations of visual double and multiple stars with angular separations in the range of one to…
Directly imaging and characterizing Earth-like exoplanets is a tremendously difficult instrumental challenge. Present coronagraphic systems have yet to achieve the required $10^{-10}$ broadband contrast in a laboratory environment, but…
We present a set of treatment techniques for GMOS/IFU data cubes, including: correction of the differential atmospheric refraction; Butterworth spatial filtering, to remove high spatial-frequency noise; instrumental fingerprint removal;…
We describe here the reduction methods that we developed to study the faintest red dwarfs and white dwarfs in an outer field of NGC6397, which was observed by \hst for 126 orbits in 2005. The particular challenge of this data set is that…
We study theoretically the accuracy of the method based on the Fourier property of lenses that is commonly used for the far field measurement. We consider a simple optical setup in which the far-field intensity pattern of a light beam…
I present an overview of our ongoing project aimed at building a new generation of velocity dispersion profiles ad rotation curves for a representative sample of Galactic globular clusters, from the the radial velocity of hundreds…
A new analysis of CCD-based BVRI broad-band photometry for the globular cluster NGC2419 is presented, based on 340 CCD images either donated by colleagues or retrieved from public archives. The calibrated results have been made available…
Optical phase determination is an important and established tool in diverse fields such as astronomy, biology, or quantum optics. There is increasing interest in using a lower number of total photons. However, different noise sources, such…
Transient radio signals of astrophysical origin present an avenue for studying the dynamic universe. With the next generation of radio interferometers being planned and built, there is great potential for detecting and studying large…
The sky subtraction performances of multi-fiber spectrographs are discussed, analysing in detail the case of the OPTOPUS system at the 3.6 meter ESO telescope at La Silla. A standard technique, based on flat-fields obtained with a uniformly…
The design and implementation of astronomical cameras based on the large-format CCD and CMOS detectors is described in this paper. The Dinacon-5 controller is used for work with the CCDs and to achieve high performance and low noise. A new…
The calibration of ground-based submillimetre observations has always been a difficult process. We discuss how to overcome the limitations imposed by the submillimetre atmosphere. Novel ways to improve line-of-sight opacity estimates are…
We describe techniques concerning wavelength calibration and sky subtraction to maximise the scientific utility of data from tunable filter instruments. While we specifically address data from the Optical System for Imaging and low…
Factors distorting the statistics of photocounts when acquiring objects with low fluxes were considered here. Measurements of the Fano factor for existing CCD systems were conducted. The study allows one to conclude on the quality of the…