This paper describes the first data release of the Kepler-INT Survey (KIS) that covers a 116deg^2^ region of the Cygnus and Lyra constellations. The Kepler field is the target of the most intensive search for transiting planets to date. Despite the fact that the Kepler mission provides superior time-series photometry, with an enormous impact on all areas of stellar variability, its field lacks optical photometry complete to the confusion limit of the Kepler instrument necessary for selecting various classes of targets. For this reason, we follow the observing strategy and data reduction method used in the IPHAS and UVEX galactic plane surveys in order to produce a deep optical survey of the Kepler field. This initial release concerns data taken between 2011 May and August, using the Isaac Newton Telescope on the island of La Palma. Four broadband filters were used, U, g, r, i, as well as one narrowband one, H{alpha}, reaching down to a 10{sigma} limit of ~20th mag in the Vega system. Observations covering ~5 deg^2^, thus about half of the field, passed our quality control thresholds and constitute this first data release. We derive a global photometric calibration by placing the KIS magnitudes as close as possible to the Kepler Input Catalog (KIC) photometry. The initial data release catalog containing around 6 million sources from all the good photometric fields is available for download from the KIS Web site (www.astro.warwick.ac.uk/research/kis/) as well as via MAST (KIS magnitudes can be retrieved using the MAST enhanced target search page http://archive.stsci.edu/kepler/kepler_fov/search.php and also via Casjobs at MAST Web site http://mastweb.stsci.edu/kplrcasjobs/).
On 28th January 2018, the large Trans-Neptunian Object 2002 TC_302_ occulted a m_v_~15.3 star with designation 593-005847 in the UCAC4 stellar catalog, corresponding to Gaia source 130957813463146112. Twelve positive occultation chords were obtained from Italy, France, Slovenia and Switzerland. Also, four negative detections were obtained near the north and south limbs. This represents the best observed stellar occultation by a TNO other than Pluto in terms of the number of chords published thus far. From the twelve chords, an accurate elliptical fit to the instantaneous projection of the body can be obtained, compatible with the near misses. The resulting ellipse has major and minor axes of 543+/-18km and 460+/-11km, respectively, with a position angle of 3+/-1 degrees for the minor axis. This information, combined with rotational light curves obtained with the 1.5-m telescope at Sierra Nevada Observatory and the 1.23-m telescope at Calar Alto observatory, allows us to derive possible three-dimensional shapes and density estimations for the body based on hydrostatic equilibrium assumptions. The effective diameter in equivalent area is around 84km smaller than the radiometrically derived diameter using thermal data from Herschel and Spitzer Space Telescopes. This might indicate the existence of an unresolved satellite of up to ~300km in diameter, to account for all the thermal flux, although the occultation and thermal diameters are compatible within their error bars given the considerable uncertainty of the thermal results. The existence of a potential satellite also appears to be consistent with other ground-based data presented here. From the effective occultation diameter combined with absolute magnitude measurements we derive a geometric albedo of 0.147+/-0.005, which would be somewhat smaller if 2002 TC_302_ has a satellite. The best occultation light curves do not show any signs of ring features or any signatures of a global atmosphere.
We present the results of the largest L' (3.8 {mu}m) direct imaging survey for exoplanets to date, the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer Exozodi Exoplanet Common Hunt (LEECH). We observed 98 stars with spectral types from B to M. Cool planets emit a larger share of their flux in L' compared to shorter wavelengths, affording LEECH an advantage in detecting low-mass, old, and cold-start giant planets. We emphasize proximity over youth in our target selection, probing physical separations smaller than other direct imaging surveys. For FGK stars, LEECH outperforms many previous studies, placing tighter constraints on the hot-start planet occurrence frequency interior to ~20 au. For less luminous, cold-start planets, LEECH provides the best constraints on giant-planet frequency interior to ~20 au around FGK stars. Direct imaging survey results depend sensitively on both the choice of evolutionary model (e.g., hot- or cold-start) and assumptions (explicit or implicit) about the shape of the underlying planet distribution, in particular its radial extent. Artificially low limits on the planet occurrence frequency can be derived when the shape of the planet distribution is assumed to extend to very large separations, well beyond typical protoplanetary dust-disk radii (~<50 au), and when hot-start models are used exclusively. We place a conservative upper limit on the planet occurrence frequency using cold-start models and planetary population distributions that do not extend beyond typical protoplanetary dust-disk radii. We find that ~<90% of FGK systems can host a 7-10 M_Jup_ planet from 5 to 50 au. This limit leaves open the possibility that planets in this range are common.
The LF program was initiated at the Warner and Swasey Observatory by S.W. McCuskey for studies of the variations of the stellar luminosity function (LF) in the Milky Way. The program originally presented in a paper of July 1947 (1947ApJ...106....1M), proposes an observation of selected Milky Way regions with the 24-36-inch Schmidt telescope of the Warner and Swasey Observatory down to mpg=12.25; the observations result in spectral classification, photographic and photored magnitudes of a large number of stars. The original catalogues contain annotated charts of the studied regions, and tables with the spectral types and magnitudes. The catalog included here is a compilation of 13 publications of this program corresponding to the fields LF1 to LF9 (detailed references in the "References" section below). It was prepared by Brian Skiff (Lowell Observatory) over the period 1994-2003, and includes the original data (with the exception of the "red index" colors too noisy to be of use), with cross-identifications to modern catalogues like the GSC (I/254) that give accurate J2000 positions; he also added extensive notes.
The Lick AGN Monitoring Project targeted 13 nearby Seyfert 1 galaxies with the intent of measuring the masses of their central black holes using reverberation mapping. The sample includes 12 galaxies selected to have black holes with masses roughly in the range 10^6^-10^7^M_{sun}_, as well as the well-studied active galactic nucleus (AGN) NGC 5548. In conjunction with a spectroscopic monitoring campaign, we obtained broadband B and V images on most nights from 2008 February through 2008 May. The imaging observations were carried out by four telescopes: the 0.76m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope, the 2m Multicolor Active Galactic Nuclei Monitoring telescope, the Palomar 60 inch (1.5m) telescope, and the 0.80m Tenagra II telescope. Having well-sampled light curves over the course of a few months is useful for obtaining the broad-line reverberation lag and black hole mass, and also allows us to examine the characteristics of the continuum variability. In this paper, we discuss the observational methods and the photometric measurements, and present the AGN continuum light curves. We measure various variability characteristics of each of the light curves. We do not detect any evidence for a time lag between the B- and V-band variations, and we do not find significant color variations for the AGNs in our sample.
The magnetic field (B-field) of the starless dark cloud L1544 has been studied using near-infrared (NIR) background starlight polarimetry (BSP) and archival data in order to characterize the properties of the plane-of-sky B-field. NIR linear polarization measurements of over 1700 stars were obtained in the H band and 201 of these were also measured in the K band. The NIR BSP properties are correlated with reddening, as traced using the Rayleigh-Jeans color excess (H-M) method, and with thermal dust emission from the L1544 cloud and envelope seen in Herschel maps. The NIR polarization position angles change at the location of the cloud and exhibit their lowest dispersion there, offering strong evidence that NIR polarization traces the plane-of-sky B-field of L1544. In this paper, the uniformity of the plane-of-sky B-field in the envelope region of L1544 is quantitatively assessed. This allows evaluation of the approach of assuming uniform field geometry when measuring relative mass-to-flux ratios in the cloud envelope and core based on averaging of the radio Zeeman observations in the envelope, as done by Crutcher et al. (2009ApJ...692..844C). In L1544, the NIR BSP shows the envelope B-field to be significantly non-uniform and likely not suitable for averaging Zeeman properties without treating intrinsic variations. Deeper analyses of the NIR BSP and related data sets, including estimates of the B-field strength and testing how it varies with position and gas density, are the subjects of later papers in this series.
We present data from a moderately deep spectroscopic Schmidt survey (B_lim_=17.5) of "active galaxies" selected by the presence of emission lines in their spectra and/or their UV excess. 92 emission line objects have been found in two adjacent fields (approximately 50deg^2^) in the direction of the southern extension of the Virgo cluster. We give a catalog containing positions, photographic R and B magnitudes, U-R colors, effective diameters, redshifts, equivalent widths and intensity ratios of the [OIII]{lambda}{lambda}4959,5007, H{beta} and [OII]{lambda}3727 emission lines. On these fields, we evaluate the completeness limit of the survey at a pseudo B magnitude values of 15.7. A more elaborate astrophysical analysis will appear in a forthcoming paper.
Between 1997 June and 2001 February the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) collected 25.4 Tbytes of raw imaging data covering 99.998% of the celestial sphere in the near-infrared J(1.25{mu}m), H(1.65{mu}m), and Ks(2.16{mu}m) bandpasses. Observations were conducted from two dedicated 1.3 m diameter telescopes located at Mount Hopkins, Arizona, and Cerro Tololo, Chile. The 2MASS All-Sky Data Release includes the FITS images covering the entire sky, a Point Source Catalog (PSC) of 471 million sources (Cat. II/242), and the present Extended Source Catalog. The 2MASS Extended Source Catalog contains sources that are extended with respect to the instantaneous PSF, such as galaxies and Galactic nebulae. The algorithms used to create the 2MASX catalog are described by Jarett et al. (2000AJ....119.2498J), and in the 2MASS Explanatory Supplement (accessible from the 2MASS Home Page). Briefly, point/ extended-source discrimination was conducted for each band-merged point-source detection by comparing a variety of radial shape, surface brightness, image moments, and symmetry parameters with characteristic stellar parameters using an oblique decision tree classifier. The classification tests included filters to exclude double and triple stars, which were one of the main contaminants in high source density regions. Stellar parameters were measured empirically as a function of time in each scan to compensate for variations in the atmospheric seeing using the aggregate properties of band-merged point-source extractions. The catalog contains 389 columns described briefly in the "Byte-by-byte Description" section below; their description includes also the 2MASS database original column names used in the original descriptions.
We present the results of the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS), a ten-year project to map the full three-dimensional distribution of galaxies in the nearby universe. The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) was completed in 2003 and its final data products, including an extended source catalog (XSC), are available online. The 2MASS XSC contains nearly a million galaxies with Ks<=13.5mag and is essentially complete and mostly unaffected by interstellar extinction and stellar confusion down to a galactic latitude of |b|=5{deg} for bright galaxies. Near-infrared wavelengths are sensitive to the old stellar populations that dominate galaxy masses, making 2MASS an excellent starting point to study the distribution of matter in the nearby universe. We selected a sample of 44599 2MASS galaxies with Ks<=11.75mag and |b|>=5{deg} (>=8{deg} toward the Galactic bulge) as the input catalog for our survey. We obtained spectroscopic observations for 11000 galaxies and used previously obtained velocities for the remainder of the sample to generate a redshift catalog that is 97.6% complete to well-defined limits and covers 91% of the sky. This provides an unprecedented census of galaxy (baryonic mass) concentrations within 300Mpc. Earlier versions of our survey have been used in a number of publications that have studied the bulk motion of the Local Group, mapped the density and peculiar velocity fields out to 50h^-1^Mpc, detected galaxy groups, and estimated the values of several cosmological parameters. Additionally, we present morphological types for a nearly complete sub-sample of 20860 galaxies with Ks<=11.25mag and |b|>=10{deg}.
The young sigma Orionis cluster is an indispensable basis for understanding the formation and evolution of stars, brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects. Our knowledge of its stellar population is, however, incomplete. I present the Mayrit catalogue, that comprises most of the stars and high-mass brown dwarfs of the cluster. The basis of this work is an optical-near infrared correlation between the 2MASS and DENIS catalogues in a circular area of radius 30 arcmin centred on the OB-type binary sigma Ori AB. The analysis is supported on a bibliographic search of confirmed cluster members with features of youth and on additional X-ray, mid-infrared and astrometric data. I list 241 sigma Orionis stars and brown dwarfs with known features of youth, 97 candidate cluster members (40 are new) and 115 back- and foreground sources in the survey area. The 338 cluster members and member candidates constitute the Mayrit catalogue. This catalogue is a suitable input for studying the spatial distribution, multiplicity, properties and frequency of discs and the complete mass function of sigma Orionis.
