Related papers: Star-Cluster Astrometry with Ground-Based Wide Fie…
SPICES (Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging and Characterization of Exoplanetary Systems) is a five-year M-class mission proposed to ESA Cosmic Vision. Its purpose is to image and characterize long-period extrasolar planets and circumstellar disks…
We investigate the potentiality of using strong lensing clusters to constrain the cosmological parameters Omega_m and Omega_lambda. The existence of a multiple image system with known redshift allows, for a given (Omega_m, Omega_lambda)…
Stars in open clusters are powerful probes of the intervening Galactic magnetic field, via background starlight polarimetry, because they provide constraints on the magnetic field distances. We use 2MASS photometric data for a sample of 31…
In this, the second in a series of three papers concerning the SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey, we describe the methods for image detection, parameterisation, classification and photometry. We demonstrate the internal and external accuracy of our…
The Extrasolar Planet Search with PRIMA project (ESPRI) aims at characterising and detecting extrasolar planets by measuring the host star's reflex motion using the narrow-angle astrometry capability of the PRIMA facility at the Very Large…
We use star counts from 13 deep HST fields imaged with the {\it Wide Field Camera - 2} in order to constrain the amount of dark matter in the Galaxy that can be in the form of low-mass main sequence stars or white-dwarfs. Based on the…
The development of low earth orbit (LEO) mega-constellation fundamentally threatens ground-based optical astronomical observations. To study the photometric properties of the LEO mega-constellations, we used the Xinglong 50 cm telescope to…
Wide-field imaging from space will reveal a wealth of information about the globular cluster systems of any galaxies in the local universe that are observed by such a mission. Individual globular clusters around galaxies in the local…
Microarcsecond (uas) astrometry is an indispensable technique to detect earth-like exoplanets, fully characterize exoplanetary orbits, and measure their masses --information critical for assessing their habitability. Highly accurate…
We discuss the system requirements for obtaining millimagnitude photometric precision over a wide field using small aperture short focal length telescope systems, such as are being developed by a number of research groups to search for…
In this Letter we present a detailed study of the lensing configuration in the cluster Abell 2218. Four multiple-images systems with measured spectroscopic redshifts have been identified in this cluster. These multiple images are very…
We investigate the limits of ground-based astrometry with adaptive optics using the core of the Galactic globular cluster M5. Adaptive optics systems provide near diffraction-limit imaging with the world's largest telescopes. The…
Menten, Reid, Eckart and Genzel (1997) accurately determined the position of Sgr A* on an infrared image, by aligning the infrared image with positions measured for SiO masers, associated with infrared-bright evolved stars, at radio…
Radio wavelength astrometry of stars and other objects has a long and productive history. The use of that technique to determine whether stars have planets around them would cover a nearly unique part of the parameter space for detection of…
We present near-infrared (H band) surface photometry of 170 galaxies, obtained in 1997 using the Calar Alto 2.2m telescope equipped with the NICMOS3 camera MAGIC. The majority of our targets are selected among bright members of the Virgo…
We introduce a new polarimeter installed on the high-resolution fiber-fed echelle spectrograph (called BOES) of the 1.8-m telescope at the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory, Korea. The instrument is intended to measure stellar…
Stellar mass plays a central role in our understanding of star formation and aging. Stellar astronomy is largely based on two maps, both dependent on mass, either indirectly or directly: the Hertzprung-Russell Diagram (HRD) and the…
This chapter discusses the use and possibilities of optical and infrared interferometry to study star formation. The chapter starts with a brief overview of the star formation process and highlights the open questions from an observational…
Based on the most complete sample of Galactic open star clusters up to 1.8 kpc, we performed statistical analysis of the distribution of open cluster parameters in order to understand the Galactic structure. The geometrical characteristics…
A new method for measuring the large-scale structure of the Galactic magnetic field is presented. The Galactic magnetic field has been probed through the Galactic disk with near-infrared starlight polarimetry, however the distance to each…