Related papers: Surface Brightness Fluctuations: A Case for Extrem…

Weak gravitational lensing requires precise measurements of galaxy shapes and therefore an accurate knowledge of the PSF model. The latter can be a source of systematics that affect the shear two-point correlation function. A key stake of…

We employ electrostatic conversion drift calculations to match CCD pixel signal covariances observed in flat field exposures acquired using candidate sensor devices for the LSST Camera. We thus constrain pixel geometry distortions present…

Traditional photometric redshift methods use only color information about the objects in question to estimate their redshifts. This paper introduces a new method utilizing colors, luminosity, surface brightness, and radial light profile to…

Photometric surveys require precise point spread function (PSF) characterization, as it varies across filters and is crucial for accurate photometry and low surface brightness (LSB) studies. However, the small PSF size provided by default…

We present a new maximum likelihood method for the calculation of galaxy luminosity functions from multi-band photometric surveys without spectroscopic data. The method evaluates the likelihood of a trial luminosity function by directly…

Nanoscale localization of point emitters is critical to several methods in optical fluorescence microscopy, including single-molecule super-resolution imaging and tracking. While the precision of the localization procedure has been the…

The S\'ersic law (SL) offers a versatile functional form for the structural characterization of galaxies near and far. Whereas applying it to galaxies with a genuine SL luminosity distribution yields a robust determination of the S\'ersic…

Even though the technology of adaptive optics (AO) is rapidly maturing, calibration of the resulting images remains a major challenge. The AO point-spread function (PSF) changes quickly both in time and position on the sky. In a typical…

Optimal error estimation is key to achieve accurate photometry and astrometry. Stellar fluxes and positions in high angular resolution images are typically measured with PSF fitting routines, such as StarFinder. However, the formal…

We interpret the large variety of redshift distributions of galaxies found by far-infrared and (sub-)millimeter deep surveys depending on their depth and wavelength using the B\'ethermin et al. (2012) phenomenological model of galaxy…

Thick, fully depleted charge-coupled devices (CCDs) are known to exhibit non-linear behavior at high signal levels due to the dynamic behavior of charges collecting in the potential wells of pixels, called the brighter-fatter effect (BFE).…

Astronomical instruments generally possess spatially variant point-spread functions, which determine the amount by which an image pixel is blurred as a function of position. Several techniques have been devised to handle this variability in…

We present the first results from the HST Archival Legacy project "SKYSURF." As described in Windhorst et al. 2022, SKYSURF utilizes the large HST archive to study the diffuse UV, optical, and near-IR backgrounds and foregrounds in detail.…

Modeling the Point Spread Function (PSF) of wide-field surveys is vital for many astrophysical applications and cosmological probes including weak gravitational lensing. The PSF smears the image of any recorded object and therefore needs to…

Strong gravitational lensing is a powerful probe of the distribution of matter on sub-kpc scales. It can be used to test the existence of completely dark subhalos surrounding galaxies, as predicted by the standard cold dark matter model, or…

This study presents a comprehensive end-to-end simulation analysis of the optical imaging performance of the China Survey Space Telescope (CSST) under in-orbit conditions. An integrated system model incorporating five static and two dynamic…

We study the apparent optical brightness of satellite streaks in ground-based observatory cameras as the orbit height is varied. This is done via simulations. Several factors are in play: the range to the satellite, satellite size and…

The intra-halo light (IHL) is the diffuse stellar component that surrounds galaxies, groups, and clusters. Its formation is intimately linked to the hierarchical assembly of the system, making it a key tracer of galaxy evolution. However,…

We propose a new technique, which we call the lens parallax method, to determine simultaneously the redshift distribution of the faint blue galaxies and the mass distributions of foreground clusters of galaxies. The method is based on…

Spectroscopic redshift surveys offer great prospects for constraining the dark sector in cosmology. Future surveys will however be both deep and wide and will thus require an analysis in 3-dimensional spherical geometry. We review and…