Related papers: The ASTRA Spectrophotometer: A July 2004 Progress …

The European Gaia astrometry mission is due for launch in 2011. Gaia will rely on the proven principles of ESA's Hipparcos mission to create an all-sky survey of about one billion stars throughout our Galaxy and beyond, by observing all…

Detecting compact objects by means of their gravitational lensing effect on an observed companion in a binary system has already been suggested almost four decades ago. However, these predictions were made even before the first observations…

Analyses of stellar spectra often begin with the determination of a number of parameters that define a model atmosphere. This work presents a prototype for an automated spectral classification system that uses a 15 nm-wide region around…

ALMA will become fully operational in a few years and open a new window on primordial galaxies. The mm and submm domain is privileged, since the peak of dust emission between 60 and 100 microns is redshifted there for z= 5-10, and the…

The definition and optimisation studies for the Gaia satellite spectrograph, the Radial Velocity Spectrometer (RVS), converged in late 2002 with the adoption of the instrument baseline. This paper reviews the characteristics of the selected…

The large optical reflector (~ 100 m^2) of a H.E.S.S. Cherenkov telescope was used to search for very fast optical transients of astrophysical origin. 43 hours of observations targeting stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars were…

The infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of main-sequence galaxies in the early universe (z > 4) is currently unconstrained as infrared continuum observations are time consuming and not feasible for large samples. We present…

Gaia will obtain astrometry and spectrophotometry for essentially all sources in the sky down to a broad band magnitude limit of G=20, an expected yield of 10^9 stars. Its main scientific objective is to reveal the formation and evolution…

The All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) is monitoring all sky to about 14 mag with a cadence of about 1 day; it has discovered about 10^5 variable stars, most of them new. The instrument used for the survey had aperture of 7 cm. A search for…

We present a new technique based on multi-band near ultraviolet and optical photometry to measure both the stellar intrinsic properties, ie luminosity and effective temperature, and the interstellar dust extinction along the line of sight…

RadioAstron is a project to use the 10m antenna on board the dedicated SPEKTR-R spacecraft, launched on 2011 July 18, to perform Very Long Baseline Interferometry from space - Space-VLBI. We describe the strategy and highlight the first…

The Automated Planet Finder (APF) is a facility purpose-built for the discovery and characterization of extrasolar planets through high-cadence Doppler velocimetry of the reflex barycentric accelerations of their host stars. Located atop…

We present the results of mid-infrared nulling interferometric observations of the main-sequence star alpha Lyr (Vega) using the 6.5 m MMT with its adaptive secondary mirror. From the observations at 10.6 microns, we find that there is no…

The Rapid Temporal Survey (RATS) explores the faint, variable sky. Our observations search a parameter space which, until now, has never been exploited from the ground. Our strategy involves observing the sky close to the Galactic plane…

The radial velocity signature of stellar noise is small, around the meter-per-second, but already too much for the detection of Earth mass planets in habitable zones. In this paper, we address the important role played by observational…

To characterise the long-term stability and true photometric sensitivity of a space-based instrument is a difficult task and can be done best with independent measurements of a relatively quiet star. A rare occasion for such a test are the…

Context: Difference imaging has proven to be a powerful technique for detecting and monitoring the variability of unresolved stellar sources in M 31. Using this technique in surveys of galaxies outside the Local Group could have many…

Gravitational wave detectors capable of making astronomical observations could begin to operate within the next year, and over the next 10 years they will extend their reach out to cosmological distances, culminating in the space mission…

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will be a ground-based, optical, all-sky, rapid cadence survey project with tremendous potential for discovering and characterizing asteroids. With LSST's large 6.5m diameter primary mirror, a wide…

Gaia is the next astrometry mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), following up on the success of the Hipparcos mission. With a focal plane containing 106 CCD detectors, Gaia will survey the entire sky and repeatedly observe the…