Overcoming Challenges of Sky Background Light in Large-Scale Astronomical Mosaics

Large-scale, high-resolution, photometrically calibrated images are key for many astrophysical problems. The INT Photometric Hα Survey has imaged the entire northern Galactic Plane in r, i and Hα filters. However, these images suffer from a number of common imaging problems, including, most critically, large-scale gradients due to scattered moonlight. The objective of this work is to produce an automated method for cleaning this data so that it can be used to produce large-scale and reliable Hα mosaics for scientific use. We created dark-time templates to account for airglow, fringing, and other sources of dark-time counts in the images and then used a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to fit a linear, 2-dimensional model to the scattered moonlight. Bright stars in the images are censored from the fitted images so they do not influence the fit. Other types of model were explored, as well as a method that employed Fourier transforms to clean the data, but without fruition. The method to fit the model to the moonlight background was originally tested in the i-band, before moving onto the r-band, subtracting scaled Hα images to remove nebulosity. An empirical scaling factor was then used to translate the model fit from the r-band to the Hα band, necessary because of varying atmospheric conditions. Finally, the cleaned data were shifted onto a common zero point before mosaicking into large scale images. The result is a strong groundwork for cleaning astronomical images by accounting for the various components to sky background but preserving features of interest. The results of this process applied to images that cover supernova remnant Simeis 147 show a substantial improvement over uncleaned imaging data. We also illustrate the versatility of this process by applying it, unprepared, to other regions in the Galactic Plane

Understanding electronic properties of water: a theoretical approach to the calculation of the adiabatic band gap of liquid water

Tese de doutoramento em Química (Química-Física), apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa através da Faculdade de Ciências, 2008Electronic properties of condensed phase water are not very well understood. They are, however, of fundamental importance for a molecular level understanding of the properties of water as well as the role of water, both as participant and medium where chemical reactions occur. It is generally accepted that bulk water can be described as a lone pair amorphous insulator or a large gap lone-pair amorphous semiconductor and the condensed phase ionization potential de_ned as a vertical quantity. A usually accepted value is 8.7 _ 0.5 eV. However, a de_nition of condensed phase properties such as the condensed phase ionization potential is not straightforward and ultimately dependent our understanding of the elementary mechanisms for ionization/excitation in condensed phase water. A longstanding issue is the concearns the fact that hydrated electrons are produced by photoabsorption at _6.5 eV. It has recently been pointed out that the ability of water to reorganize about charged (and neutral) molecules, as well as the reactive nature of electronically excited water molecules, should be taken into account in explaining observed aqueous anion thermochemical and photochemical properties. Moreover, it has been shown that an adiabatic route for accessing the conduction band of liquid water can be de_ned and that the bottom of the conduction band is characterized by the reorganization of the water molecules around the H3O+ cation and OH radical as well as by the presence of a delocalized or quasi-free electron. A _6.9 eV value was proposed by J.V. Coe [Int. Rev. Phys. Chem. 20, 33, 2001], based on known aqueous anion thermochemical and photochemical properties,The present work presents a theoretical estimate for two key reference quantities required for the quantitative estimate of the adiabatic band gap of pure liquidwater as de_ned by J.V. Coe: the hydration energy of the hydroxyl radical andthe electron a_nity of liquid water. The hydration of the hydroxyl radical wasinvestigated by microsolvation modeling and statistical mechanics Monte Carlosimulation. The electron electronic density of states and a_nity of liquid water wasinvestigated trough a sequential Quantum Mechanical / Monte Carlo methodology.Finally, as the adiabatic approach for a de_nition of a band gap for pure liquidwater is based on macroscopic quantities, a molecular level veri_cation of the adiabatic picture was also undertaken

The ATHENA X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU)

The X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) on board the Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics (Athena) will provide spatially resolved high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy from 0.2 to 12 keV, with 5" pixels over a eld of view of 5 arc minute equivalent diameter and a spectral resolution of 2.5 eV up to 7 keV. In this paper, we rst review the core scienti c objectives of Athena, driving the main performance parameters of the X-IFU, namely the spectral resolution, the eld of view, the e ective area, the count rate capabilities, the instrumental background. We also illustrate the breakthrough potential of the X-IFU for some observatory science goals. Then we brie y describe the X-IFU design as de ned at the time of the mission consolidation review concluded in May 2016, and report on its predicted performance. Finally, we discuss some options to improve the instrument performance while not increasing its complexity and resource demands (e.g. count rate capability, spectral resolution)

Mount Vernon Democratic Banner May 3, 1878

Mount Vernon Democratic Banner was a newspaper published weekly in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Until 1853, it was published as the Democratic Banner.https://digital.kenyon.edu/banner1878/1022/thumbnail.jp

Study of supernovae and massive stars and prospects with the 4m International Liquid Mirror Telescope

Massive stars are the progenitors of the most energetic explosions in the Universe such as core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) and gamma ray bursts. During their life time they follow various evolutionary phases (e.g. supergiant, luminous blue variable and Wolf-Rayet). They strongly influence their environments through their energetic ionization radiation and powerful stellar winds. Furthermore, the formation of low- and intermediate-mass stars are also being regulated by them. The Carina nebula region, which hosts a large population of massive stars and several young star clusters, provides an ideal target for studying the feedback of massive stars. In this thesis, we investigated a wide field (32′ × 31′ ) region located in the west of the Carina nebula and centered on the massive binary WR 22. For our study, we used new optical photometry (UBVRI Hα), along with some low resolution spectroscopy, archival near infra-red (2MASS), and X-ray (Chandra, XMM-Newton) data. We estimated several parameters such as reddening, reddening law, etc. and also identified young stellar objects located in the region under study (Kumar et al., 2014b). Among the various types of CCSNe, Type IIb are recognized with their typical observational properties. Some of them show clear indication of double peaks in their light curves. The spectral features of these SNe show a transition between Type II and Type Ib/c events at early and later epochs, respectively. It has been noticed that the occurrence of these events is not common in volume limited surveys. In this thesis we have studied the properties of the light curve and spectral evolution of the Type IIb supernova 2011fu. The observational properties of this object show resemblance to those of SN 1993J with a possible signature of the adiabatic cooling phase (Kumar et al., 2013). When light passes through the expanding ejecta of the SNe, it retains information about the orientation of the ejected layers. In general, CCSNe exhibit a significant level of polarization during various phases of their evolution at different wavelengths. We have investigated the broad band polarimetric properties of a Type II plateau SN 2012aw and compared it with other well-studied CCSNe of similar kinds (Kumar et al., 2014a). In the framework of the present thesis, we have also contributed to the development of the 4m International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) project which is a joint collaborative effort among different universities and research institutes in Belgium, India, Canada and Poland. We performed various experiments including the spin casting of the primary mirror, optical quality tests of the mercury surface, mylar film experiments, etc. The possible scientific capabilities and future contri- butions of this telescope are also discussed. We propose our plans to identify the transients (specially supernovae) with the ILMT and their further follow-up scheme. The installation of the ILMT will start very soon at the Devasthal observatory, ARIES Nainital, India.International Liquid Mirror Telescope Projec