A new high sensitivity radar sensor for space debris detection and accurate orbit determination

As the amount of space debris orbiting the earth is continuously increasing, it is becoming essential to monitor and predict the debris' trajectories in order to avoid collision that could threaten space missions, i.e. operative satellites or manned spacecraft. An innovative bistatic radar system, that couples multi-beaming and ranging techniques, is proposed in this work as an instrument for the observation of Earth-orbiting objects. The main characteristics of the sensor are described. In addition, tailored algorithms have been implemented to perform orbit determination using the peculiar outputs provided by the sensor. The results of numerical simulations are illustrated to assess its performances for space debris detection and orbit determination

Early type galaxies and structural parameters from ESO public survey KiDS

The Kilo Degree survey (KiDS) is a large-scale optical imaging survey carried out with the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), which is the ideal tool for galaxy evolution studies.We expect to observemillions of galaxies for which we extract the structural parameters in four wavebands (u, g, r and i). This sample will represent the largest dataset with measured structural parameters up to a redshift z D 0:5. In this paper we will introduce the sample, and describe the 2D fitting procedure using the 2DPHOT environment and the validation of the parameters with an external catalog. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

Strong Lens Search in the ESO Public Survey KiDS

We have started a systematic search for strong lens candidates in the ESO public survey KiDS based on the visual inspection ofmassive galaxies in the redshift range 0:1 < z < 0:5. As a pilot program we have inspected 100 deg2, which overlap with SDSS and where there are known lenses to use as a control sample. Taking advantage of the superb image quality of VST/OmegaCAM, the colour information and accurate model subtracted images, we have found 18 new lens candidates, for which spectroscopic confirmation will be needed to confirm their lensing nature and study the mass profile of the lensing galaxies. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016