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 astrometric measurements can also probe the nature of dark matter, the early universe, black holes, and neutron stars, thus providing unique data for new astrophysics. This paper presents technologies of calibrating detectors and field distortions for achieving narrow field uas relative astrometry with a focal plane array detector on a 6 m telescope.
@article{arxiv.2212.08129,
title = {Micro-arcsecond Astrometry Technology: Detector and Field Distortion Calibration},
author = {Michael Shao and Chengxing Zhai and Bijan Nemati and Inseob Hahn and Russell Trahan and Slava G. Turyshev},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.08129},
year = {2024}
}