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Low Surface-Brightness (LSB) galaxies are severely underrepresented in surveys used to define the local luminosity function (LF), but could it in principle be detected in deep surveys. To explore the possible contribution of such objects to…

One of the possible approaches to detecting optical counterparts of GRBs requires monitoring large parts of the sky. This idea has gained some instrumental support in recent years, such as with the "Pi of the Sky" project. The broad sky…

The method of photon distribution function (PDF) is used to study fluctuations of light beams propagating through a turbulent atmosphere. Our analysis concerns the regime of saturated fluctuations. The focus is on the phenomena of beam…

Observations close to the diffraction limit, with high Strehl ratios from Adaptive Optics (AO)-assisted instruments mounted on ground-based telescopes are a reality and will become even more widespread with the next generation instruments…

Context. Future weak lensing surveys, such as the Euclid mission, will attempt to measure the shapes of billions of galaxies in order to derive cosmological information. These surveys will attain very low levels of statistical error, and…

The surface brightness distribution (SBD) function describes the number density of galaxies as measured against their central surface brightness. Because detecting galaxies with low central surface brightnesses is both time-consuming and…

The combined PSF of the BFI and the SOT onboard the Hinode spacecraft is investigated. Observations of the Mercury transit from November 2006 and the solar eclipse(s) from 2007 are used to determine the PSFs of SOT for the blue, green, and…

Modern Giant Segmented Mirror Telescopes (GSMTs) like the Extremely Large Telescope, which is currently under construction, depend heavily on Adaptive Optics (AO) systems to correct for atmospheric distortions. However, a residual blur…

We introduce a procedure developed by the ``Teramo Stellar Populations Tools'' group (Teramo-SPoT), specifically optimized to obtain realistic simulations of CCD images of elliptical galaxies. Particular attention is devoted to include the…

Existing and planned optical telescopes and surveys can detect artificially-illuminated objects comparable in total brightness to a major terrestrial city out to the outskirts of the Solar System. Orbital parameters of Kuiper belt objects…

We present measurements of the Fundamental Plane (FP) parameters (the effective radius, the mean effective surface brightness, and the central velocity dispersion) of six field elliptical galaxies at intermediate redshift. The imaging is…

A new $z$-stretching finite difference method is established for simulating the paraxial light beam propagation through a lens in a cylindrically symmetric domain. By introducing proper domain transformations, we solve corresponding…

By measuring photoelectron tracks, the gas pixel detectors of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer satellite provide estimates of the photon detection location and its electric vector position angle (EVPA). However, imperfections in…

Photometric redshifts, which have become the cornerstone of several of the largest astronomical surveys like PanStarrs, DES, J-PAS or the LSST, require precise measurements of galaxy photometry in different bands using a consistent physical…

In the case of ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics systems, the point spread function (PSF) is only poorly known or completely unknown. Moreover, an accurate modeling of the PSF is in general not available. Therefore in…

The inherent non-linearity of intensity correlation functions can be used to spatially distinguish identical emitters beyond the diffraction limit, as achieved, for example, in Super-Resolution Optical Fluctuation Imaging (SOFI). Here, we…

Continuous wavefront sensing benefits space observatories in on-orbit optical performance maintenance. To measure the phase of a wavefront, phase retrieval is an attractive technique as it uses multiple point spread function (PSF) images…

We present a new algorithm for estimating the Point Spread Function (PSF) in wide-field astronomical images with extreme source crowding. Robust and accurate PSF estimation in crowded astronomical images dramatically improves the fidelity…

A simple theoretical framework for the description and interpretation of spatially correlated modelling residuals is presented, and the resulting tools are found to provide a useful aid to model selection in the context of weak…

We examined the anisotropic point spread function (PSF) of Suprime-Cam data utilizing dense star field data. We decomposed the PSF ellipticities into three components, the optical aberration, atmospheric turbulence, and chip-misalignment in…