A fundamental challenge for wide-field imaging surveys is obtaining follow-up spectroscopic observations: there are >10$^9$ photometrically cataloged sources, yet modern spectroscopic surveys are limited to åisebox-0.5ex few× 10$^6$ targets. As we …
We present a Bayesian analysis of the distances to 15,040 Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) RR Lyrae stars using $V$- and $I$-band light curves from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment, in combination with new $z$-band observations from the Dark …
We determine the period-magnitude relations of RR Lyrae stars in 13 photometric bandpasses from 0.4 to 12 μm using timeseries observations of 134 stars. The Bayesian formalism, extended from our previous work to include the effects of line-of-sight …
During the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory and Virgo joint science runs in 2009-2010, gravitational wave (GW) data from three interferometer detectors were analyzed within minutes to select GW candidate events and infer their …
We report the discovery of the optical afterglow of the γ-ray burst (GRB) 130702A, identified upon searching 71 deg$^2$ surrounding the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) localization. Discovered and characterized by the intermediate Palomar …
Modern time-domain surveys continuously monitor large swaths of the sky to look for astronomical variability. Astrophysical discovery in such data sets is complicated by the fact that detections of real transient and variable sources are highly …
The direct detection of binary systems in wide-field surveys is limited by the size of the stars' point-spread functions (PSFs). A search for elongated objects can find closer companions, but is limited by the precision to which the PSF shape can be …
With growing data volumes from synoptic surveys, astronomers necessarily must become more abstracted from the discovery and introspection processes. Given the scarcity of follow-up resources, there is a particularly sharp onus on the frameworks that …
The rate of image acquisition in modern synoptic imaging surveys has already begun to outpace the feasibility of keeping astronomers in the real-time discovery and classification loop. Here we present the inner workings of a framework, based on …
Dust extinction and reddening are ubiquitous in astronomical observations and are often a major source of systematic uncertainty. We present here a study of the correlation between extinction in the Milky Way and the equivalent width of the Na I D …