Hipparcos, the New Reduction of the Raw Data

ISBN-13: 9789048176120 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 449 str.

Floor van Leeuwen

Opis

Thepublication oftheHipparcos andTycho Catalogues in 1997 transformed astrometry, and as a consequence astronomers perception of astrometry. What had before often been regarded as a somewhat quaint specialty of limited re- vance to modern astrophysics, was suddenly seen to produce a wealth of data of immediate practical use. The ready availability of many thousand precise trigonometric stellar distances and the access to an accurate and dense - tical reference frame have changed the way astronomers think about certain problems and plan their experiments. Inevitably, the exploitation of so much new data not only solved some old problems, tidied up several confused areas and sharpened many observational constraints, but it also generated new qu- tions about established theory and about the data themselves. The author of this book has taken a radical approach to answer some of these questions: a complete re-examination of the satellite data and the models used to represent them, in particular the attitude modelling. Eventually this resulted in the new and very signi?cantly improved Hipparcos reduction described in this book. This remarkable achievement was made possible by a combination of many factors, including time and the exponential growth of computing power, but mainly an incredible amount of detailed, tedious and ingenious work by the author and the resulting insight into what really went on with the satellite in its unhappy orbit. Dr."

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"For astronomers, 'Hipparcos - The New Reduction of the Raw Data' promises to open up a new chapter in the study of the age, size and properties of stars, helping them to tackle fundamental questions about the origins of the universe with greater precision than before. ... In some cases, its contents are up to five times more accurate than the previous guide, offering scholars what in astronomical terms is the closest they can get to pinpoint accuracy." (John Rowlands, www.physorg.com, September, 2007)

Spis treści

List of Figures. List of Tables. List of Acronyms. Preface. Introduction. Dedication. Part I The Hipparcos mission. 1. THE HIPPARCOS MISSION. 1.1 Overture. 1.2 The mission. 1.3 The published data. 1.4 Concepts of the new reduction. 2. HIPPARCOS ASTROMETRY 2.1 From positions and velocities to astrometric data. 2.2 The Hipparcos astrometric data 2.3 Reconstruction of the along-scan rotation phase. 2.4 Grid distortions 2.5 Astrometric-parameter solutions. Part II Exploring the Hipparcos astrometric data. 3. INDIVIDUAL, SINGLE STARS. 3.1 Precisions and accuracies. 3.2 Correlations. 3.3 Parallaxes. 3.4 Proper motions. 3.5 Disturbed solutions. 3.6 Comparison with the ICRS. 4. THE ASTROMETRIC DATA FOR COMPOSITE IMAGES AND ORBITAL BINARIES. 4.1 The modulated signal for small-separation double stars. 4.2 Astrometric parameters for double stars. 4.3 Double stars with two catalogue entries. 4.4 Variable-brightness of one component. 4.5 Multiple systems. 4.6 Orbital motions. 5. GROUPS OF SINGLE STARS. 5.1 Solving for common parameters. 5.2 Application to star clusters. 5.3 Calibrating luminosities. 5.4 Conclusions. 6. KINEMATICS OF THE SOLAR NEIGHBOURHOOD. 6.1 Systematic motions. 6.2 The distribution of nearby stars. Part III Hipparcos Photometric data. 7 THE PHOTOMETRIC DATA. 7.1 The Hipparcos photometric pass bands. 7.2 Formal errors and variability indicators. 7.3 Variability analysis. 7.4 Newly discovered variables. Part IV Hipparcos attitude modelling. 8. A FREE­FLOATING RIGID BODY IN SPACE. 8.1 Dynamics of a rigid body in space. 8.2 The internal torques and inertia tensor. 8.3 External torques acting on the satellite. 8.4 Non-rigidity. 9. THE TORQUES ON HIPPARCOS AS OBSERVED OVER THE MISSION. 9.1 Relation between attitude and torque reconstruction. 9.2 Solar radiation torques. 9.3 Magnetic torques and the remaining torque variations. 9.4 Predictability of the environmental torques. 10. FULLY-DYNAMIC ATTITUDE FITTING. 10.1 Outline of the method. 10.2 The integration engines. 10.3 Implementing the gyro data. 10.4 Implementing the star mapper data. 10.5 Implementing the Image Dissector Tube (IDT) transit data. 10.6 Conclusions. Part V Summary of calibration results. 11. THE MISSION TIMELINE. 11.1 Trend analysis and anomalies. 11.2 Data coverage and detector response. 12. PAYLOAD CALIBRATIONS. 12.1 The optical transfer function. 12.2 Large-scale geometric-distortion calibration. 12.3 Photometric calibrations. 13. SPACECRAFT-PARAMETER CALIBRATIONS. 13.1 The on-board clock. 13.2 Gyro characteristics. 13.3 Thruster firings and the Centre of Gravity. Part VI The next generation. 14. GAIA. 14.1 Introduction. 14.2 The spacecraft and payload. 14.3 The mission plan. 14.4 The astrometric data reduction.

Blurb

The new reduction of the Hipparcos data presents a very significant improvement in the overall reliability of the astrometric catalogue derived from this mission. Improvements by up to a factor 4 in the accuracies for in particular brighter stars have been obtained. This has been achieved mainly through careful study of the satellite dynamics, and incorporating results from these studies in the attitude modelling. Data correlations, caused by attitude-modelling errors in the original catalogue, have all but disappeared. This book provides overviews of the new reduction as well as on the use of the Hipparcos data in a variety of astrophysical implementations. A range of new results, like cluster distances and luminosity calibrations, is presented. The Hipparcos data provide a unique opportunity for the study of satellite dynamics. The orbit covered a wide range of altitudes, showing in detail the different torques acting on the satellite. One part of the book details these studies and their impact on the new reduction. It furthermore presents an extensive summary on a wide range of spacecraft and payload calibrations, which provide a detailed record of the conditions under which these unique Hipparcos data have been obtained.