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Commissioning and improvements of the instrumentation and launch of the scientific exploitation of OARPAF, the Regional Astronomical Observatory of the Antola Park
Righi, Chiara; Landoni, Marco; Ricci, Davide +18 more
The OARPAF telescope is an 80-cm-diameter optical telescope installed in the Antola Mount Regional Reserve, in Northern Italy. We present the results of the characterization of the site, as well as developments and interventions that have been implemented, with the goal of exploiting the facility for scientific and educational purposes. During the…
Revised astrometric calibration of the Gemini Planet Imager
Duchêne, Gaspard; Esposito, Thomas M.; Oppenheimer, Rebecca +49 more
We present a revision to the astrometric calibration of the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), an instrument designed to achieve the high contrast at small angular separations necessary to image substellar and planetary-mass companions around nearby, young stars. We identified several issues with the GPI data reduction pipeline (DRP) that significantly a…
Autonomous on-board data processing and instrument calibration software for the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager on-board the Solar Orbiter mission
Hirzberger, Johann; Solanki, Sami K.; Woch, Joachim +18 more
A frequent problem arising for deep space missions is the discrepancy between the amount of data desired to be transmitted to the ground and the available telemetry bandwidth. A part of these data consists of scientific observations, being complemented by calibration data to help remove instrumental effects. We present our solution for this discre…
Guide star catalog generation of star sensors for interstellar navigation
Wu, Liang
In interstellar travel, parallax and stellar aberration have a non-negligible influence on the star identification of star sensors. Through the analysis of the working principle of star sensors, only the guide star catalog generation can solve this problem. The influence mechanism of parallax and stellar aberration is synthetically analyzed by fou…
Astrometric errors introduced by interpixel capacitive coupling in hybridized arrays
Baum, Stefi; Ninkov, Zoran; Donlon, Kevan
Interpixel capacitance (IPC) between adjacent pixels in hybridized arrays gives rise to an electrostatic cross talk. This cross talk causes MTF degradation and blurring of images or spectra collected using these devices. As pixel size is driven down from the 18-µm pixel pitch of the H2RG read out circuits to the 10- or 15-µm H4RGs IPC …
Origin of the in-orbit instrumental background of the Hard X-ray Imager onboard Hitomi
Enoto, Teruaki; Yamaoka, Kazutaka; Fukazawa, Yasushi +43 more
Understanding and reducing in-orbit instrumental backgrounds are essential to achieving high sensitivity in hard x-ray astronomical observations. The observational data of the Hard X-ray Imager (HXI) onboard the Hitomi satellite provide useful information on the background components due to its multilayer configuration with different atomic number…
Science merit function for the Kepler mission
Jenkins, Jon M.; Borucki, William J.; Duren, Riley M.
The Kepler mission was a National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) Discovery-class mission designed to continuously monitor the brightness of at least 100,000 stars to determine the frequency of Earth-size and larger planets orbiting other stars. Once the Kepler proposal was chosen for a flight opportunity, it was necessary to optimize the desi…
Astrometry with the Wide-Field Infrared Space Telescope
Casertano, Stefano; Lu, Jessica R.; Anderson, Jay +15 more
The Wide-Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST) will be capable of delivering precise astrometry for faint sources over the enormous field of view of its main camera, the Wide-Field Imager (WFI). This unprecedented combination will be transformative for the many scientific questions that require precise positions, distances, and velocities of sta…
ExoEarth yield landscape for future direct imaging space telescopes
Stark, Christopher C.; Mazoyer, Johan; Pueyo, Laurent +19 more
The expected yield of potentially Earth-like planets is a useful metric for designing future exoplanet-imaging missions. Recent yield studies of direct-imaging missions have focused primarily on yield methods and trade studies using "toy" models of missions. Here, we increase the fidelity of these calculations substantially, adopting more realisti…
Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment data simulator
France, Kevin; Rüdisser, Hannah T.; Koskinen, Tommi +5 more
The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) is a 6U NASA CubeSat carrying on board a low-resolution (R ∼ 2000 to 3000), near-UV (2500 to 3300 Å) spectrograph. It has a rectangular primary Cassegrain telescope to maximize the collecting area. CUTE, which is planned for launch in spring 2020, is designed to monitor transiting extra-solar plan…