Related papers: Disentangling microlensing and differential extinc…
The gravitational potential responsible for the lensing effect in SBS 1520+530 is studied over length scales from a few arc-seconds to a few arc-minutes. For this purpose, we use sharply deconvolved Hubble Space Telescope images in the…
Photometric redshifts are studied with a template approach using data from HDF-N and -S . The problem of aliasing in photometric redshift estimates is investigated in some detail and found not to be a significant problem if at least four…
We analyze low resolution Spitzer infrared (IR) 5-14 micron spectra of the diffuse emission toward a carefully selected sample of stars. The sample is composed of sight lines toward stars that have well determined ultraviolet (UV)…
We study the origin of absorption features on the blue side of the C IV broad emission line of the large-separation lensed quasar SDSS J1029+2623 at z_em ~ 2.197. The quasar images, produced by a foreground cluster of galaxies, have a…
We report the discovery of a new gravitational lens system from the CLASS survey, CLASS B0631+519. VLA, MERLIN and VLBA observations show a doubly-imaged radio core, a doubly-imaged lobe and a second lobe that is probably quadruply-imaged.…
We present a simple method to accurately infer line of sight (LOS) integrated lensing effects for galaxy scale strong lens systems through image reconstruction. Our approach enables us to separate weak lensing LOS effects from the main…
Diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) are broad absorption features measured in sightlines probing the diffuse interstellar medium. Although large carbon-bearing molecules have been proposed as the carriers producing DIBs, their identity…
We present JHK surface photometry of 15 highly inclined, late-type (Sab-Sc) spirals and investigate the quantitative effects of dust extinction. Using the (J - H, H - K) two-color diagram, we compare the color changes along the minor axis…
We have used optical images acquired with the Hubble Space Telescope to construct the first high-resolution extinction map in the direction of Terzan 5, a peculiar stellar system in the inner bulge of our Galaxy. The map has a spatial…
We present a multi-wavelength study of the gravitational lens COSMOS J095930+023427 (z=0.89), together with the associated galaxy group located at $z\sim0.7$ along the line of sight and the lensed background galaxy. The source redshift is…
We report the results of high-resolution ($R \sim 80,000$) spectroscopic observations of the emission-line object HD 85567, which has been classified as a FS CMa type object or a pre-main-sequence star. The main goal is to put more…
Dust extinction curves provide one of the main avenues to understanding the detailed nature of dust grains and accounting for the effects of dust on observations of many astrophysical objects. For the first time, spectroscopic ultraviolet…
We present the spectroscopic confirmation and lens modeling of HSC~J0233$-$0205, a strong-lensing system produced by a close pair of elliptical galaxies at $z_d=0.790\pm0.022$ that lenses a multi-component background source at…
We investigate how Einstein rings and magnified arcs are affected by small-mass dark-matter haloes placed along the line-of-sight to gravitational lens systems. By comparing the gravitational signature of line-of-sight haloes with that of…
Recently, Park and Gott reported an interesting observation: image separation of lensed QSOs declines with QSO redshift more precipitously than expected in any realistic world model, if the lenses are taken to be either singular isothermal…
Interstellar reddening corrections are necessary to reconstruct the intrinsic spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of accreting protostellar systems. The stellar SED determines the heating and chemical processes that can occur in…
New low-resolution UV spectra of a sample of reddened OB stars in M31 were obtained with HST/STIS to study the wavelength dependence of interstellar extinction and the nature of the underlying dust grain populations. Extinction curves were…
Finite source effects can be important in observations of gravitational microlensing of stars. Near caustic crossings, for example, some parts of the source star will be more highly magnified than other parts. The spectrum of the star is…
We have studied the interstellar extinction in a field of ~3' x 3' at the core of the 30 Doradus nebula, including the central R136 cluster, in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Observations at optical and near-infrared wavelengths, obtained with…
We present an analysis of an occulting galaxy pair, serendipitously discovered in ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury (ANGST) observations of NGC 253 taken with Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Survey in F475W, F606W$ and F814W…