Aims. The effect of frequency-dependent AGN core positions (“core-shifts”) on radio Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) global astrometry measurements is investigated. Methods. The basic equations relating to VLBI astrometry are reviewed, including the effects of source structure. A power-law representation of core-shifts, based on both observations and theoretical considerations of jet co...

Abstract. The Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA) is composed of hundreds of thousands of images taken by a number of different instruments all across the sky. A large number of these images are of overlapping fields and therefore contain many of the same objects. Through the use of a probabilistic cross-matching technique, it is possible to use these overlapping fields to determine a linkage between s...

The effects of anisoplanatism on the adaptive optics point-spread function are investigated. A model is derived that combines observations of the guide star with an analytic formulation of anisoplanatism in order to generate predictions for the adaptive optics point-spread function at arbitrary locations within the field of view. The analytic formulation captures the dependencies of anisoplanat...

We provide a preliminary estimate of the performance of reflex astrometry on Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of nearby stars. In Monte Carlo experiments, we analyze large samples of astrometric data sets with low to moderate signal-to-noise ratios. We use periodograms for discovery and least-squares fits for estimating the Keplerian parameters. We find a completeness for detection in ...

We present the proposal for the infrared adaptive optics (AO) assisted, two-object, high-throughput, multiple-beam-combiner GRAVITY for the VLTI. This instrument will be optimized for phase-referenced interferometric imaging and narrow-angle astrometry of faint, red objects. Following the scientific drivers, we analyze the VLTI infrastructure, and subsequently derive the requirements and concep...

Microlensing events are now regularly being detected by monitoring the flux of a large number of potential sources and measuring the combined magnification of the images. This phenomenon could also be detected directly from the gravitational deflection, by means of high precision astrometry using interferometry. Relative astrometry at the level of 10μas may become possible in the near future. T...

The key features of the MATPHOT algorithm for precise and accurate stellar photometry and astrometry using discrete Point Spread Functions are described. A discrete Point Spread Function (PSF) is a sampled version of a continuous PSF which describes the two-dimensional probability distribution of photons from a point source (star) just above the detector. The shape information about the photon ...

The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) will observe sources in crowded fields. Recent work has shown that source crowding can induce significant positional errors in SIM’s astrometric measurements, even for targets many magnitudes brighter than all other crowding sources. Here we investigate whether the spectral decomposition of the fringe pattern may be used to disentangle the overlapping frin...

PRIMA, the instrument for Phase-Referenced Imaging and Micro-arcsecond Astrometry at the VLTI, is currently being developed at ESO. PRIMA will implement the dual-feed capability, at first for two UTs or ATs, to enable simultaneous interferometric observations of two objects that are separated by up to 1 arcmin. PRIMA is designed to perform narrowangle astrometry in K-band with two ATs as well a...