413 research outputs found
The KELT-South Telescope
The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) project is a survey for new
transiting planets around bright stars. KELT-South is a small-aperture,
wide-field automated telescope located at Sutherland, South Africa. The
telescope surveys a set of 26 degree by 26 degree fields around the southern
sky, and targets stars in the range of 8 < V < 10 mag, searching for transits
by Hot Jupiters. This paper describes the KELT-South system hardware and
software and discusses the quality of the observations. We show that KELT-South
is able to achieve the necessary photometric precision to detect transits of
Hot Jupiters around solar-type main-sequence stars.Comment: 26 pages, 13 figure
Astrometry with "Carte du Ciel" plates, San Fernando zone. I. Digitization and measurement using a flatbed scanner
We present an original method of digitizing and astrometrically reducing
"Carte du Ciel" plate material using an inexpensive flatbed scanner, to
demonstrate that for this material there is an alternative to more specialized
measuring machines that are very few in number and thus not readily available.
The sample of plates chosen to develop this method are original "Carte du Ciel"
plates of the San Fernando zone, photographic material with a mean epoch
1903.6, and a limiting photographic magnitude ~14.5, covering the declination
range of -10 < dec < -2. Digitization has been made using a commercial flatbed
scanner, demonstrating the internal precision that can be attained with such a
device. A variety of post-scan corrections are shown to be necessary. In
particular, the large distortion introduced by the non-uniform action of the
scanner is modelled using multiple scans of each plate. We also tackle the
specific problems associated with the triple-exposure images on some plates and
the grid lines present on all. The final measures are reduced to celestial
coordinates using the Tycho-2 Catalogue. The internal precision obtained over a
single plate, 3microns ~ 0.18" in each axis, is comparable to what is realized
with similar plate material using slower, less affordable, and less widely
available conventional measuring machines, such as a PDS microdensitometer. The
accuracy attained over large multi-plate areas, employing an overlapping plate
technique, is estimated at 0.2".Comment: 16 pages, 19 figures and 3 tables. Accepted for publication in A&
Searching for unknown open clusters in the Tycho-2 catalog
We present 11 new open cluster candidates found in a systematic search for
unknown star clusters using the astrometric and photometric data included in
the Tycho2 catalog. The possible existence of these stellar aggregates is
supported by the analysis of proper motions, color-magnitude diagrams, stellar
density distributions, and by the visual inspection of the Digitized Sky Survey
(DSS) plates. With these tools we were able to determine mean absolute proper
motions as well as preliminary reddenings, distances and ages for the majority
of the candidates. We found that most of them are possibly nearby (closer than
about 600 pc) open clusters never studied before.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by A&
Target selection for the SUNS and DEBRIS surveys for debris discs in the solar neighbourhood
Debris discs - analogous to the Asteroid and Kuiper-Edgeworth belts in the
Solar system - have so far mostly been identified and studied in thermal
emission shortward of 100 um. The Herschel space observatory and the SCUBA-2
camera on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope will allow efficient photometric
surveying at 70 to 850 um, which allow for the detection of cooler discs not
yet discovered, and the measurement of disc masses and temperatures when
combined with shorter wavelength photometry. The SCUBA-2 Unbiased Nearby Stars
(SUNS) survey and the DEBRIS Herschel Open Time Key Project are complimentary
legacy surveys observing samples of ~500 nearby stellar systems. To maximise
the legacy value of these surveys, great care has gone into the target
selection process. This paper describes the target selection process and
presents the target lists of these two surveys.Comment: 67 pages with full tables, 7 figures, accepted to MNRA
Kinematics of Nearby Subdwarf Stars
We present an analysis of the space motions of 742 subdwarf stars based on
the sample of Carney et al. (1994, CLLA). Hipparcos parallaxes, TYC2+HIP proper
motions and Tycho2 proper motions were combined with radial velocities and
metallicities from CLLA. The kinematical behavior is discussed in particular in
relation to their metallicities. The majority of these sample stars have metal
abundances of [Fe/H] >-1 and represent the thick disk population. The halo
component, with [Fe/H] <-1.6, is characterized by a low mean rotation velocity
and a radially elongated velocity ellipsoid. In the intermediate metallicity
range (-1.6 < [Fe/H] <-1), we find a significant number of subdwarfs with
disklike kinematics. We interpret this population of stars as a metal-weak
thick disk population.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysic
Warm Debris Disks Candidates in Transiting Planets Systems
We have bandmerged candidate transiting planetary systems (from the Kepler
satellite) and confirmed transiting planetary systems (from the literature)
with the recent Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) preliminary release
catalog. We have found 13 stars showing infrared excesses at either 12 and/or
22 microns. Without longer wavelength observations it is not possible to
conclusively determine the nature of the excesses, although we argue that they
are likely due to debris disks around the stars. If confirmed, our sample ~
doubles the number of currently known warm excess disks around old main
sequence stars. The ratios between the measured fluxes and the stellar
photospheres are generally larger than expected for Gyr-old stars, such as
these planetary hosts. Assuming temperature limits for the dust and emission
from large dust particles, we derive estimates for the disk radii. These values
are comparable to the planet's semi-major axis, suggesting that the planets may
be stirring the planetesimals in the system.Comment: Submitted to A&A: 21 October 2011 / Accepted for publication in A&A:
27 February 201
Kinematic Control of the Inertiality of the System of Tycho-2 and UCAC2 Stellar Proper Motions
Based on the Ogorodnikov-Milne model, we analyze the proper motions of
Tycho-2 and UCAC2 stars. We have established that the model component that
describes the rotation of all stars under consideration around the Galactic y
axis differs significantly from zero at various magnitudes. We interpret this
rotation found using the most distant stars as a residual rotation of the
ICRS/Tycho-2 system relative to the inertial reference frame. For the most
distant ( pc) Tycho-2 and UCAC2 stars, the mean rotation around
the Galactic y axis has been found to be mas yr.
The proper motions of UCAC2 stars with magnitudes in the range are
shown to be distorted appreciably by the magnitude equation in
, which has the strongest effect for northern-sky stars
with a coefficient of mas yr mag. We have detected
no significant effect of the magnitude equation in the proper motions of UCAC2
stars brighter than .Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure
- âŚ