The quest for the cosmological parameters that describe our universe continues to motivate the scientific community to undertake very large survey initiatives across the electromagnetic spectrum. Over the past two decades, the Chandra and XMM-Newton observatories have sup- ported numerous studies of X-ray-selected clusters of galaxies, active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and the X-ray background. The present paper is the first in a series reporting results of the XXL-XMM survey; it comes at a time when the Planck mission results are being finalised. We present the XXL Survey, the largest XMM programme totaling some 6.9Ms to date and involving an international consortium of roughly 100 members. The XXL Survey covers two extragalactic areas of 25deg^2^ each at a point-source sensitivity of ~5x10^-15^erg/s/cm^2^ in the [0.5-2]keV band (completeness limit). The survey's main goals are to provide constraints on the dark energy equation of state from the space-time distribution of clusters of galaxies and to serve as a pathfinder for future, wide-area X-ray missions. We review science objectives, including cluster studies, AGN evolution, and large-scale structure, that are being conducted with the support of approximately 30 follow-up programmes. List of XXL papers: I. Scientific motivations - XMM-Newton observing plan - Follow-up observations and simulation programme. II. The bright cluster sample: catalogue and luminosity function. III. Luminosity-temperature relation of the bright cluster sample. IV. Mass-temperature relation of the bright cluster sample. VI. The 1000 brightest X-ray point sources. VII. A supercluster of galaxies at z = 0.43. VIII. MUSE characterisation of intracluster light in a z~0.53 cluster of galaxies. IX. Optical overdensity and radio continuum analysis of a supercluster at z=0.43. X. K-band luminosity - weak-lensing mass relation for groups and clusters of galaxies. XI. ATCA 2.1 GHz continuum observations. XII. Optical spectroscopy of X-ray-selected clusters and the frequency of AGN in superclusters. XIII. Baryon content of the bright cluster sample. XIV. AAOmega redshifts for the southern XXL field.
The XZ catalog was created at the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1977 by Richard Schmidt and Tom Van Flandern, primarily for the purpose of generating predictions of lunar occultations, and for analyzing timings of these events. It was designed to include all stars from Robertson's Zodiacal Catalog (ZC), the SAO catalog, and the AGK3 catalog that are within 6d 40' of the ecliptic (a region hereafter called "the Zodiac"), which is as far as the Moon's limb can ever get as seen from anywhere on the Earth's surface, leaving some margin for stellar proper motions and change in the obliquity of the ecliptic over the course of three centuries. The original version contained 32,221 entries. Since that time, a number of changes have been made in succeeding versions, including better positions and proper motions, and the elimination and addition of stars. The catalog contains visual magnitudes and radial velocities as well as astrometric data. Two years after the catalog was created, and observations were already reported using its numbers, it was found that about 200 stars near the equator from the AGK3 catalog were outside the Zodiac, and a similar number that should have been included were not. Since the numbering system had already been established, the catalog was not changed to correct this deficiency. Over the years, some errors in the catalog, due mainly to errors in the SAO and AGK3, were corrected. A few stars with very bad data were "eliminated" by changing their declination to -89d and adding 40 to their magnitudes. In 1986, most of the stellar positional data were replaced with improved data from Harrington's and Douglass' Zodical Zone (ZZ) catalog, which used for its observing list SAO stars in the Zodiac (actually broader than the XZ Zodiac because ecliptic latitudes to +/-15d were used) north of declination approximately -25d. The positional data for many of the stars south of declination -25d with right ascensions greater than 18h were improved with data from the Lick Voyager Uranus catalog. In 1991, the photographic magnitudes of the AGK3 stars not in the SAO were converted to photovisual magnitudes by applying corrections based on each star's spectral type, when available. Stellar magnitudes and double-star codes have been updated periodically based on reports from observers. Each time a series of updates was made, the XZ version was changed. The current version is XZ80N, created during the summer of 1992. Late in the summer of 1992, Mitsuru Soma in Japan created a J2000 version of the XZ, which we call XZ80NJ2. The next update is planned for 1994, when the positional data may also be replaced with PPM data; probably only the J2000 version will be updated. The XZ catalog is no longer maintained at the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO); it is now maintained by the International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA). The changes made to the different versions of the XZ catalog during the past several years have been documented in Occultation Newsletter, IOTA's quarterly publication.
The XZ catalog was created at the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1977 by Richard Schmidt and Tom Van Flandern, primarily for the purpose of generating predictions of lunar occultations, and for analyzing timings of these events. It was designed to include all stars within 6d 40' of the ecliptic (the "Zodiac"), which is as far as the Moon's limb can ever get as seen from anywhere on the Earth's surface, leaving some margin for stellar proper motions and change in the obliquity of the ecliptic over the course of three centuries. The original version contained 32,221 entries; since that time, many changes have been made in succeeding versions, including better positions and proper motions, and the elimination and addition of stars. Details about the history of XZ catalog can be found in the "doc.txt" file. The XZ80Q revision has been developed from XZ80P, which was created by Mitsuru Soma. It is now complete over the Zodiac for stars down to visual magnitude 12.0. The "xz80q.dat" file contains the list of stars making the catalog; additional files provide details about double and variable stars included in the XZ80Q. The catalog includes also lists of the various existing names of the stars.
The SPM4 Catalog contains absolute proper motions, celestial
coordinates, and B,V photometry for 103,319,647 stars and galaxies
between the south celestial pole and -20 degrees declination. The
catalog is roughly complete to V=17.5. It is based on photographic and
CCD observations taken with the Yale Southern Observatory's
double-astrograph at Cesco Observatory in El Leoncito, Argentina.
This is a completely revised and enlarged edition of the General Catalogue of Trigonometric Stellar Parallaxes containing 15,994 parallaxes for 8,112 stars published before the end of 1995. In this Fourth Edition, 1,722 (27%) new stars have been added to those contained in the previous edition by Jenkins (1963). The mode of the parallax accuracy for the newly added stars (0.004" s.e.) is considerably better than in the previous editions (about 0.016"). Approximately 2300 stars are not in the Hipparcos Catalog. The catalog contains equatorial coordinates in the system of the FK4 for 1900, the total proper motion and its position angle, the weighted average absolute parallax and its standard error, the number of parallax observations, quality of interagreement of the different values, the visual magnitude and various cross identifications with other catalogs. Auxiliary information is listed, including UBV photometry, MK spectral types, data on the variability and binary nature of the stars, and miscellaneous information to aid in determining the reliability of the data.
The various volumes of the Yale Zone Catalogues have been combined into a single, homogeneous, machine-readable volume, sorted by position, containing the information common to most of the volumes. Additional data are provided in separate files. The notes have been transcribed into a machine-readable form. Errors detected in the course of the preparation of the catalogue, as well as previously known errors, have been corrected, and supplementary data have been added.
We compare patterns of variation for the Sun and 72 Sun-like stars by combining total and spectral solar irradiance measurements between 2003 and 2017 from the SORCE satellite, Stromgren b, y stellar photometry between 1993 and 2017 from Fairborn Observatory, and solar and stellar chromospheric CaII H+K emission observations between 1992 and 2016 from Lowell Observatory. The new data and their analysis strengthen the relationships found previously between chromospheric and brightness variability on the decadal timescale of the solar activity cycle. Both chromospheric H+K and photometric b, y variability among Sun-like stars are related to average chromospheric activity by power laws on this timescale. Young active stars become fainter as their H+K emission increases, and older, less active, more Sun-age stars tend to show a pattern of direct correlation between photometric and chromospheric emission variations. The directly correlated pattern between total solar irradiance and chromospheric Ca ii emission variations shown by the Sun appears to extend also to variations in the Stromgren b, y portion of the solar spectrum. Although the Sun does not differ strongly from its stellar age and spectral class mates in the activity and variability characteristics that we have now studied for over three decades, it may be somewhat unusual in two respects: (1) its comparatively smooth, regular activity cycle, and (2) its rather low photometric brightness variation relative to its chromospheric activity level and variation, perhaps indicating that facular emission and sunspot darkening are especially well-balanced on the Sun.
The weekly averaged near-infrared fluxes for 2652 stars were extracted from the cold and warm era all-sky maps of the Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE). Since the DIRBE program only archived the individual Calibrated Infrared Observations for the 10 month cold era mission, the weekly averaged fluxes were all that were available for the warm era. The steps required to extract stellar fluxes are described as are the adjustments that were necessary to correct the results for several systematic effects. The observations are at a cadence of once a week for 3.6 years (~1300 days), providing continuous sampling on variable stars that span the entire period for the longest fundamental pulsators. The stars are divided into three categories: those with large amplitude of variability, smaller amplitude variables, and sources whose near-infrared brightness do not vary according to our classification criteria. We show examples of the results and the value of the added baseline in determining the phase lag between the visible and infrared.
Gaia DR2 offers unparalleled precision on stars' parallaxes and proper motions. This allows the prediction of microlensing events for which the lens stars (and any planets they possess) are nearby and may be well studied and characterised. We identify a number of potential microlensing events that will occur before the year 2035.5, 20 years from the Gaia DR2 reference epoch. We query Gaia DR2 for potential lenses within 100pc, extract parallaxes and proper motions of the lenses and background sources, and identify potential lensing events. We estimate the lens masses from Priam effective temperatures, and use these to calculate peak magnifications and the size of the Einstein radii relative to the lens stars' habitable zones. We identify 7 future events with a probability >10% of an alignment within one Einstein radius. Of particular interest is DR2 5918299904067162240 (WISE J175839.20-583931.6), magnitude G=14.9, which will lens a G=13.9 background star in early 2030, with a median 23% net magnification. Other pairs are typically fainter, hampering characterisation of the lens (if the lens is faint) or the ability to accurately measure the magnification (if the source is much fainter than the lens). Of timely interest is DR2 4116504399886241792 (2MASS J17392440-2327071), which will lens a background star in July 2020, albeit with weak net magnification (0.03%). Median magnifications for the other 5 high-probability events range from 0.3% to 5.3%. The Einstein radii for these lenses are 1-10 times the radius of the habitable zone, allowing these lensing events to pick out cold planets around the ice line, and filling a gap between transit and current microlensing detections of planets around very low-mass stars. We provide a catalogue of the predicted events to aid future characterisation efforts. Current limitations include a lack of many high-proper motion objects in Gaia DR2 and often large uncertainties on the proper motions of the background sources (or only 2-parameter solutions). Both of these deficiencies will be rectified with Gaia DR3 in 2020. Further characterisation of the lenses is also warranted to better constrain their masses and predict the photometric magnifications.
The orbits of eight systems with low-mass components (HIP14524, HIP16025, HIP28671, HIP46199, HIP47791, HIP60444, HIP61100, and HIP73085) are presented. Speckle interferometric data were obtained at the 6m Big Telescope Alt-azimuth Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences (BTA SAO RAS) from 2007 to 2019. New data, together with measures already in the literature, made it possible to improve upon previous orbital solutions in six cases and to construct orbits for the first time in the two remaining cases (HIP14524 and HIP60444). Mass sums are obtained using both Hipparcos and Gaia parallaxes, and a comparison with previously published values is made. Using the Worley & Heintz criteria, the classification of the orbits constructed is carried out.
![To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to the catalogue of astrometric microlensing events. For details, see the `Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain dedication <http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>`_. Of course, you should still give proper credit when using this data as required by good scientific practice. .. image:: /static/img/cc0.png :alt: [CC0]](/registry-search/?f%5BcapabilityType_facet%5D%5B%5D=Simple+Cone+Search&f%5Brights_facet%5D%5B%5D=To+the+extent+possible+under+law%2C+the+publisher+has+waived+all+copyright+and+related+or+neighboring+rights+to+the+catalogue+of+astrometric+++microlensing+events.++For+details%2C+see+the+%60Creative+Commons+CC0+1.0+Public+Domain+dedication+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fcreativecommons.org%2Fpublicdomain%2Fzero%2F1.0%2F%3E%60_.++Of+course%2C+you+should+still+give+proper+credit+when+using+this+data+as+required+by+good+scientific+practice.%0A%0A..+image%3A%3A+%2Fstatic%2Fimg%2Fcc0.png%0A+++%3Aalt%3A+%5BCC0%5D%0A%0A){kind=link}