“Analytical model for starshade formation flying with applications to exoplanet direct imaging observation scheduling,” by Gabriel Soto, Dmitry Savransky, and Rhonda Morgan has been published in the Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems, and is available via open access at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.7.2.021209
On Proposals
At a recent group meeting, we discussed responding to funding opportunities from US funding agencies (mostly NASA). A recording of the discussion is available below. As always, all opinions are strictly my own.
Congratulations to Zvonimir Stojanovski on Passing his A Exam
Zvonimir Stojanovski successfully passed his A exam on 11/16/2020, marking the entrance into the dissertation phase of his degree program. The presentation can be viewed below, and the slides are available here.
Congratulations Dr. Shapiro!
Congratulations to Jacob Shapiro for successfully completing his B exam. A copy of his talk, titled “Using Modern Mathematical and Computational Tools for Image Processing”, is available here, or watch his presentation below.
MAE Seminar
I had the privilege of giving the MAE department seminar on October 20th, titled “Engineering the Search for New Worlds.” A recording of the talk is available below, and the slides can be accessed here.
Fun with Git
I’ve been exploring use of some slightly more advanced git functionality to help with project organization, and have sketched out some notes for cool things you can do with git submodules, and my personal associated use cases:
Gabe’s Masterpiece
As a going away present, I would like to bequeath my magnum opus.
Congratulations Dr. Soto!
Congratulations to Gabriel Soto for successfully completing his B exam. A copy of his talk, titled “Orbital Design Tools and Scheduling Techniques for Optimizing Space Science and Exoplanet-Finding Missions”, is available here, or watch his presentation below.
Astronomical Journal Paper Published
Congratulations to Carlos Gascón (visiting student from Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 2019) on the publication of his paper: “Analytic Stability Maps of Unknown Exoplanet Companions for Imaging Prioritization” in the Astronomical Journal. This paper explores the idea of looking for unknown planets that could be directly imaged, orbiting stars where one (un-imageable) planet has already been discovered. Data for the paper is also available from Cornell eCommons.
EXOSIMS – WFIRST Publication by Dean Keithly now in JATIS
Dean Keithly and the hard working maintainers of EXOSIMS finally have a new publication validating the number of exoplanets detectable via direct imaging by the WFIRST coronagraph. The paper includes planet population, observation time optimization, and scheduling of these observations.
The full citation is:
Dean R. Keithly, Dmitry Savransky, Daniel Garrett, Christian Delacroix, Gabriel Soto, “Optimal scheduling of exoplanet direct imaging single-visit observations of a blind search surveylt;/p,” J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst. 6(2), 027001 (2020), doi: 10.1117/1.JATIS.6.2.027001.
The paper is available under open access at http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.6.2.027001.