Determination semi-automatique des diametres de crateres lunaires a partir de plaques photographiques de la Lune

Résumé Nous comparons les valeurs des diamètres de cratères lunaires obtenues à partir de mesures visuelles et semi-automatiques de plaques photographiques de la Lune. Nous montrons que le tracé du contour d'un cratère obtenu à partir d'un nouvel algorithme de calcul est équivalent au contour estimé par l'il.

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We compare two methods for the determination of lunar crater diameters: visual and semiautomatic. We show that the lunar crater contour obtained either by application of the new algorithm or by visual measure are equivalent.

     

Sur La comparaison des profils lunaires de C. B. Watts et Th. Weimer

The reduction of occultations observed by means of a double-image micrometer leads us to use limb profiles in order to determine limb corrections. After these corrections the dispersion of the results amounts to 0″.26 for reductions using C. B. Watts' lunar charts and 0″.35 for those using Th. Weimer's lunar profiles. The comparison of 18 profiles effectively used in our reductions permits us, in 17 cases, to show a difference between the adopted radii of the reference curves, sometimes with an offset. We translate this result in terms of a correction to the elevations given by Th. Weimer; this reduces to 0″.29 the dispersion of the results in the present case.     

Remarques sur l'utilisation des profils lunaires pour la reduction des observations d'occultations

It is shown that a rigourous determination of the argument in the limb charts of the Moon leads to a limb correction which, in some cases, may differ perceptibly from the one obtained by the traditional method. In the case of central occultations, the discrepancy may reach a maximum of 0″.9 when the Moon is near its maximum or minimum declination and introduces a statistical uncertainty of 0″.2 in the determination of the position of the Moon.     

Fundamental catalogues,past, present and future

Presented is a review of the main achievements of fundamental astrometry from earliest times through the present century. At all times the construction of a celestial reference coordinate system has tormed an important task for describing motions in the sky. The positions of fundamental stars and their centennial variations have been laid down in fundamental catalogues which-beginning with the 18th century-have facilitated famous discoveries and have given rise to the improvement of the techniques of observation. This review culminates in the documentation of the observational achievements of the latest 25 years where in a world-wide campaign of about 50 observatories considerable contributions have been made to the improvement of the current conventional reference coordinate system given in the Fourth Fundamental Catalogue (FK4). The observations analysed in an ambitious program at Heidelberg will yield the FK5 which also will introduce the System of Astronomical Constants adopted by the IAU in 1976. This report ends with an outlook on contributions of space techniques and of radioastrometry of extragalactic sources to progress in fundamental astrometry.Dedication: This review is an extended version of the Dirk Brouwer Lecture 1983 of the Division on Dynamical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society. With the topics of this lecture the author honors Dirk Brouwer's contributions to astrometry and gratefully acknowledges the support given to astronomy by Ministerialdirigent Karl Otto Schlau in the Government of Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Germany.     

Surface brightness bias in galaxy catalogues; distance effects

We have investigated the apparent variation of the surface brightness distribution of disc galaxies with distance within three different samples 1) a diameter limited sample of ESO catalogue galaxies in the direction of the cluster A3574 in Centaurus, 2) all ESO catalogue disc galaxies with redshifts, and 3) a sample of fainter galaxies from our surveys of the Fornax Cluster area. In each case we find, as predicted for a sample dominated by surface brightness selection effects, that the distribution narrows with distance. Both high and low surface brightness galaxies are underrepresented in galaxy catalogues. Not because they are rare, but because the volume over which they are sampled is considerably smaller than that of their normal surface brightness counterparts. The question of how many galaxies there are in the Universe remains un-answered. In addition, since selection is byapparent surface brightness, the most distant sample (where cosmological dimming becomes important) contains galaxies of higher intrinsic surface brightness than do the nearby samples, again confirming a previous theoretical prediction. The galaxies we observe in the distant Universe are very different to those we observe close by because of observational selection.     

OB association members in the ACT and TRC catalogues

The Hipparcos Catalogue contains members of nearby OB associations brighter than 12th magnitude in V . However, membership lists are complete only to magnitude V =7.3. In this paper we discuss whether proper motions listed in the 'Astrographic Catalogue+Tycho' reference catalogue (ACT) and the Tycho Reference Catalogue (TRC), which are complete to V ∼10.5 mag, can be used to find additional association members. Proper motions in the ACT/TRC have an average accuracy of ∼3 mas yr⁻¹. We search for ACT/TRC stars which have proper motions consistent with the spatial velocity of the Hipparcos members of the nearby OB associations already identified by de Zeeuw et al. These stars are first selected using a convergent-point method, and then subjected to further constraints on the proper-motion distribution, magnitude and colour to narrow down the final number of candidate members. Monte Carlo simulations show that the proper-motion distribution, magnitude, and colour constraints remove ∼97 per cent of the field stars, while at the same time retain more than 90 per cent of the cluster stars.
The procedure has been applied to five nearby associations: the three subgroups of Sco OB2, plus Per OB3 and Cep OB6. In all cases except Cep OB6, we find evidence for new association members fainter than the completeness limit of the Hipparcos Catalogue. However, narrow-band photometry and/or radial velocities are needed to pinpoint the cluster members, and to study their physical characteristics.     

Finding outlier light curves in catalogues of periodic variable stars

We present a methodology to discover outliers in catalogues of periodic light curves. We use a cross-correlation as the measure of 'similarity' between two individual light curves, and then classify light curves with lowest average 'similarity' as outliers. We performed the analysis on catalogues of periodic variable stars of known type from the MACHO and OGLE projects. This analysis was carried out in Fourier space and we established that our method correctly identifies light curves that do not belong to those catalogues as outliers. We show how an approximation to this method, carried out in real space, can scale to large data sets that will be available in the near future such as those anticipated from the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).     

OB stars in the Tycho-2 and 2MASS catalogues

The Tycho-2 proper motions and five-band Tycho-2 and 2MASS photometry for approximately 2.5 million common stars have been used to select OB stars and to determine the extinction and photometric distance for each of them. We have selected 37 485 stars and calculated their reddenings based on their positions in the two-color V _T -H, J-Ks diagrams relative to the zero-age main sequence and the theoretical reddening line for B5 stars. Tests confirm that the selected stars belong to the spectral types O-B with a small admixture of later types. We calculate the extinction coefficient R and its variations with Galactic longitude based on the positions of the selected stars in the two-color B _T -V _T , V _T -Ks diagram. The interstellar extinction for each star is calculated as the product of the reddening found and the coefficient R. The extinction and its variations with Galactic longitude agree well with the extinction based on the model by Arenou et al. (1992). Calibration of the relation between the absolute magnitude and reduced proper motion V _T − + 5 + 5 log μ for Hipparcos stars has allowed us to calculate the absolute magnitudes and photometric distances for the selected stars. The distances found agree with those derived from the Hipparcos parallaxes within 500 pc. The distribution of the stars and the extinction variations with distance found show that the selected stars form an almost complete sample of stars with spectral types earlier than B5 within about 750 pc of the Sun. The sample includes many noticeably reddened stars in the first and second Galactic quadrants that are absent from the Hipparcos and Tycho Spectral Types Catalogues. This slightly changes the pattern of the distribution of OB stars compared to the classical pattern based on Hipparcos. Original Russian Text ? G.A. Goncharov, 2008, published in Pis’ma v Astronomicheskiĭ Zhurnal, 2008, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 10–20.     

Kiev photographic catalogues of stellar proper motions: Compilation and application

The works of the Goloseevo Observatory (Kiev, U.S.S.R.) on the compilation of catalogues of absolute proper motions measured with respect to faint galaxies are discussed. Using these catalogues, some astrometric and stellar characteristics have been obtained. Particular attention is paid to the problem of improving the accuracy of stellar position and proper motion determinations. The optimum procedure for compiling the consolidated catalogue intended for the improvement of fundamental reference frame, kinematic characteristics of stars as well as for the solution of applied problems is developed.     

Application of vector spherical harmonics for kinematic analysis of stars from zonal catalogues

We solve the problem on a kinematic analysis of the three-dimensional velocity field of stars from zonal catalogues, i.e., catalogues in which the stars are presented at all right ascensions in some declination zones. We have constructed a system of vector spherical harmonics with the properties of completeness and orthogonality for a chosen declination zone. We suggest a method that allows the Ogorodnikov-Milne model parameters in the Galactic coordinate system to be estimated by analyzing the proper motions and radial velocities of stars in the equatorial coordinate system. The vector spherical harmonics are shown to have the following advantages over the standard approach based on a direct leastsquares estimation of the parameters for a specific model. First, in contrast to the standard approach, the new method can reveal all systematic components of the velocity field irrespective of a particular model. Second, it allows one to get rid of the correlation between the sought-for parameters, which presents a serious problem for the conventional method in the case of zonal catalogues. Third, the method of vector spherical harmonics allows the kinematic parameters to be estimated at least by two techniques. Comparison of these two solutions makes it possible to test the standard kinematic model for compatibility with the observational data. The developed method has been tested on the basis of numerical experiments and applied for a kinematic analysis of the proper motions of Tycho-2 stars in the southern hemisphere for which the parallaxes can be estimated using data from the Tycho-2 Spectral Type Catalogue.     

Projected bispectrum in spherical harmonics and its application to angular galaxy catalogues

We present a theoretical and exact analysis of the bispectrum of projected galaxy catalogues. The result can be generalized to evaluate the projection in spherical harmonics of any 3D bispectrum and therefore has applications to cosmic microwave background and gravitational lensing studies.
By expanding the 2D distribution of galaxies on the sky in spherical harmonics, we show how the three-point function of the coefficients can be used in principle to determine the bias parameter of the galaxy sample. If this can be achieved, it would allow a lifting of the degeneracy between the bias and the matter density parameter of the Universe, which occurs in linear analysis of 3D galaxy catalogues. In previous papers, we have shown how a similar analysis can be done in three dimensions, and we show here through an error analysis and by implementing the method on a simulated projected catalogue that ongoing three-dimensional galaxy redshift surveys (even with all the additional uncertainties introduced by partial sky coverage, redshift-space distortions and smaller numbers) will do far better than all-sky projected catalogues with similar selection function.     

Comparison of three catalogues of absolute proper motions of stars in the M33 field

Comparing absolute proper motions of stars obtained by different methods from observations with the Tautenburg Schmidt telescope (134/200/400), the Kiev long focus astrograph (40/550) and the Pulkovo normal astrograph (33/350) the external accuracy of the Tautenburg absolute proper motions was examined. It agrees well with the Tautenburg internal accuracy which is known from earlier investigations as 0″.7 per century. That accuracy was now achieved for all AGK3 stars in the M33 field including the bright stars from 7^m to 10^m.     

Recovering the initial conditions of our local Universe from NOG and PSCz catalogues

We apply the ztrace algorithm to the optical NOG and infrared PSC z galaxy catalogues to reconstruct the pattern of primordial fluctuations that have generated our local Universe. We check that the density fields traced by the two catalogues are well correlated, and consistent with a linear relation [either in δ or in  log (1 +δ)  ] with relative bias (of NOG with respect to PSC z )   b _rel= 1.1 ± 0.1  . The relative bias relation is used to fill the optical zone of avoidance at  | b | < 20°  using the PSC z galaxy density field.
We perform extensive testing on simulated galaxy catalogues to optimize the reconstruction. The quality of the reconstruction is predicted to be good at large scales, up to a limiting wavenumber   k _lim≃ 0.4 h Mpc⁻¹  beyond which all information is lost. We find that the improvement arising from the denser sampling of the optical catalogue is compensated by the uncertainties connected to the larger zone of avoidance.
The initial conditions reconstructed from the NOG catalogue are found (analogously to those from the PSC z ) to be consistent with a Gaussian paradigm. We use the reconstructions to produce sets of initial conditions ready to be used for constrained simulations of our local Universe.     

Serendipitous UV source catalogues for 10 years of XMM and 5 years of Swift

Two UV serendipitous source catalogues are presented which were compiled based on the observations with two similar UV telescopes, one being on-board the ESA’s XMM Newton observatory and another—on-board the NASA’s Swift satellite. Both telescopes have similar optical and registration systems providing photometry in three ultraviolet and three visible bands. After processing a 10 years long series of observations from XMM and 5 years from Swift, we have compiled two source catalogues containing more than 4 million sources for XMM and 6 million sources for Swift. We describe the processing algorithms and present catalogue characteristics in comparison with each other.