The proper motions of the AGK 3 R and SRS Stars

1978 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 505-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. E. Corbin

The AGK3R and SRS are lists of reference stars containing, respectively, 21,499 stars in the Northern Hemisphere and about 20,500 stars in the Southern Hemisphere. Eleven transit circles contributed to the observations of the AGK3R. The program was a differential one based on theFK4, and the average mean epoch of observation is 1959.0. The compilation of the SRS is still in progress at the U.S. Naval Observatory. As Dr. Hughes has just explained, the SRS positions also will be referred to the system of the FK4, and the mean epochs of observation will be in the latter part of the 1960’s. My task has been to compute the proper motions for these two groups of stars that will permit the use of the observed positions away from the epochs of observation. Since the proper motions of the AGK3R stars have been completed, I will report on that work first.

1986 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Corbin

Currently the computation of mean positions and proper motions for the International Reference Stars (IRS) is hampered by large variations in the observational histories of the stars and lack of overlap between the magnitudes of the IRS and of the FK4. The poorest IRS observational histories are +60° to +80° in the north and −40° to −80° in the south. The much-needed extension of the fundamental system to the ninth magnitude will be made in the FK5. The Faint Fundamental Extension is currently being selected at the U. S. Naval Observatory. A proposed list of 1030 Faint Fundamental stars has been prepared for the Northern Hemisphere, and work has begun on the selection in the Southern Hemisphere.


2000 ◽  
Vol 180 ◽  
pp. 75-79
Author(s):  
S.E. Urban ◽  
G.L. Wycoff

AbstractSince the establishment of the Hipparcos Catalog as the defining source of the optical reference frame, densification beyond its ≈ 120,000 stars has been made possible by the utilization of the Tycho-1 Catalog. The ACT, combining the old Astrographic Catalog (AC) data with the Tycho-1 positions, is the best known example of this. The Tycho-2 consortium, led by E. Høg, has performed new reductions on the Tycho data. This not only has increased the astrometric and photometric accuracies of the original 1 million Tycho-1 stars, but also has added an additional 1.5 million stars. The U.S. Naval Observatory led the effort to compute the proper motions of these 2.5 million stars. They are based not only on the AC data but also include over 140 other ground-based catalogs, all directly reduced to the Hipparcos system. The result of these efforts is the Tycho-2 Catalog, available since February 2000. Positions, proper motions, and BT and VT magnitudes are given for 2.5 million stars. The catalog is 99% complete to V=11.0, and 90% complete to V=11.5. Positional accuracies at the mean epochs vary from < 10 mas for stars V < 9 to just under 100 mas for V > 12. Proper motion accuracies are estimated to be 1.3 mas/year to 3.0 mas/year for the same magnitude ranges. Photometric accuracies range from 0.02 magnitudes for the brightest stars to 0.25 magnitudes for the faintest.


1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 551-551
Author(s):  
N. Zacharias ◽  
M.I. Zacharias ◽  
C. de Vegt ◽  
C.A. Murray

The Second Cape Photographic Catalog (CPC2) contains 276,131 stars covering the entire Southern Hemisphere in a 4-fold overlap pattern. Its mean epoch is 1968, which makes it a key catalog for proper motions. A new reduction of the 5687 plates using on average 40 Hipparcos stars per plate has resulted in a vastly improved catalog with a positional accuracy of about 40 mas (median value) per coordinate, which comes very close to the measuring precision. In particular, for the first time systematic errors depending on magnitude and color can be solved unambiguously and have been removed from the catalog. In combination with the Tycho Catalogue (mean epoch 1991.25) and the upcoming U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC) project proper motions better than 2 mas/yr can be obtained. This will lead to a vastly improved reference star catalog in the Southern Hemisphere for the final Astrographic Catalogue (AC) reductions, which will then provide propermotions for millions of stars when combined with new epoch data. These data then will allow an uncompromised reduction of the southern Schmidt surveys on the International Celestial Reference System (ICRS).


Radiocarbon ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan G Hogg ◽  
Timothy J Heaton ◽  
Quan Hua ◽  
Jonathan G Palmer ◽  
Chris SM Turney ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTEarly researchers of radiocarbon levels in Southern Hemisphere tree rings identified a variable North-South hemispheric offset, necessitating construction of a separate radiocarbon calibration curve for the South. We present here SHCal20, a revised calibration curve from 0–55,000 cal BP, based upon SHCal13 and fortified by the addition of 14 new tree-ring data sets in the 2140–0, 3520–3453, 3608–3590 and 13,140–11,375 cal BP time intervals. We detail the statistical approaches used for curve construction and present recommendations for the use of the Northern Hemisphere curve (IntCal20), the Southern Hemisphere curve (SHCal20) and suggest where application of an equal mixture of the curves might be more appropriate. Using our Bayesian spline with errors-in-variables methodology, and based upon a comparison of Southern Hemisphere tree-ring data compared with contemporaneous Northern Hemisphere data, we estimate the mean Southern Hemisphere offset to be 36 ± 27 14C yrs older.


1971 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 163-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Vasilevskis ◽  
A. R. Klemola

One of the principal aims of the Lick proper motion program, as conceived and initiated by Wright (1950), was to derive the correction to precession. Ideally, proper motions of stars from a fundamental catalogue should be measured with respect to galaxies. Unfortunately, these stars are too bright for a direct reference to faint galaxies, even with an objective grating and two systems of exposures (2 h and 1 min) on every plate, as employed at Lick. For this reason a cooperative project with the U.S. Naval Observatory was initiated in 1953 (Scott, 1954; Vasilevskis, 1954), with an intention to establish a direct relationship between meridian circle and Lick observations. When Heckmann (1954) proposed the formation of the AGK3, it was agreed to discontinue the cooperation mentioned, so as to make the resources of the U.S. Naval Observatory available for observing the AGK3 reference stars, and then to use the AGK3 as an intermediary for relating the Lick proper motions to a fundamental system. An obvious advantage of this change was offered by the abundance of AGK stars for measurement on Lick plates; a disadvantage is the absence of the AGK3 data south of declination –2.°5.


1999 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 361-362
Author(s):  
James L. Hilton ◽  
Ronald C. Stone

Asteroid masses are the largest source of unmodeled forces in current planetary ephemerides research. Williams (1984) showed that the asteroids produce km size perturbations in the position of Mars. However, the masses of only three asteroids are known to better than 10%, and only six other asteroid masses have been determined at all.Detecting the mass of an asteroid is difficult because the observed quantity is the change in the mean motion of a second, perturbed asteroid. Asteroid masses are small, so the change in the mean motion is typically on the order of 0."015 yr−1. Thus, excellent orbit determinations are needed both before and after the perturbing encounter. This requires high precision observations over as many oppositions as possible.Hilton (1997) determined the mass of 15 Eunomia to within 25% by detecting perturbations of 1313 Berna. The greatest source of uncertainty in determining the mass of Eunomia was the very poor coverage and accuracy of pre-encounter observations. Hilton (1998) has determined the masses of 1 Ceres, 2 Pallas and 4 Vesta, all based on mutual interactions. The uncertainties in the masses are 1% for Ceres, 3% for Pallas, and 7% for Vesta. The masses of Ceres and Pallas are the best so far, and the mass for Vesta corroborates previous determinations of its mass.


1977 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 151-151
Author(s):  
Dorrit Hoffleit ◽  
Carlos Jaschek

Almost any star catalogue becomes obsolescent as soon as it comes off the press. It is now twelve years since the third edition of the Yale Bright Star Catalogue was published in 1964. In the intervening years numerous important new results have appeared, notably the Jaschek et al Catalogue of MK Spectral Classes, the Lick Double Star Catalogue, the U.S. Naval Observatory Catalogue of UBV Magnitudes, the Abt and Biggs Bibliography of Radial Velocities, the Third Edition and three Supplements of the General Catalogue of Variahle Stars, the SAO Catalogue with proper motions reduced to the FK4 system, several new lists of spectroscopic binaries, and a great many shorter compilations. Consequently well in excess of 20,000 entries in the third edition of the Bright Star Catalogue need up-dating.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S248) ◽  
pp. 310-315
Author(s):  
N. Zacharias

AbstractA series of ground-based, dedicated astrometric, observational programs have been performed or are in preparation which provide a dense and accurate optical reference frame. Integral to all these programs are new observations to link the Hipparcos Celestial Reference Frame (HCRF) to the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF), based on compact, extragalactic radio sources.The U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC) 3rd release is in preparation. A pixel re-reduction is in progress to improve astrometric and photometric accuracy as well as completeness of this all-sky reference catalog to 16th magnitude. Optical counterparts of ICRF radio sources have been observed with 0.9-meter telescopes contemporaneously. Scanning of over 5000 early-epoch astrograph plates on StarScan has been completed. These data will improve the proper motions of stars in the 10 to 14 mag range for the UCAC3 release.A 111 million-pixel CCD was successfully fabricated in 2006 and test observations at the USNO astrograph are underway. Four of such detectors will be used for the USNO Robotic Astrometric Telescope (URAT) focal plane assembly. Phase I of URAT will use the astrograph to reach 18th magnitude, while the new 0.85-meter telescope with a 4.5 deg diameter field of view will reach 21st magnitude. The URAT primary mirror has been fabricated.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Márcio Watanabe

AbstractSeasonality plays an essential role in the dynamics of many infectious diseases. Its confirmation in an emerging infectious disease is usually done using time series data from several years. By using statistical regression methods for time-series data pooled from more than 50 countries from both hemispheres, we show how to determine its presence in a pandemic at the onset of the seasonal period. We measure its expected effect in the mean transmission rate of SARS-coV-2 and predict when further epidemic outbreaks of COVID-19 will occur. The obtained result in the Northern Hemisphere shows that seasonality reduced the mean growth rate in 222.5% in April 2020. A relative reduction greater than 100% should be interpreted as a reduction changing an increasing rate to a decreasing one. In contrast, at the same moment, the seasonal effect in the Southern Hemisphere increased the mean growth rate in 740.3%. Our analysis simultaneously considers other confounding factors to properly separate them from seasonal effects and, in addition, we measure the mean global effect of social-distancing interventions and its relation with income. Future COVID-19 waves are expected to occur in autumn/winter seasons, typically between September and March in the Northern Hemisphere, and between April and September in the Southern Hemisphere. Simulations of a seasonal SEIR model with a social distancing effect are shown to describe the behavior of COVID-19 outbreaks in several countries. These results provide vital information for policy makers to plan their actions against the new coronavirus disease, particularly in the optimization of social-distancing interventions and vaccination schedules. Ultimately, our methods can be used to identify and measure seasonal effects in a future pandemic.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Minganti ◽  
Simon Chabrillat ◽  
Yves Christophe ◽  
Quentin Errera ◽  
Marta Abalos ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Brewer–Dobson Circulation (BDC) transports chemical tracers from the well-mixed tropical troposphere to the polar stratosphere, with many important implications for climate, chemistry, ozone distribution and recovery. Since the photochemical losses of nitrous oxide (N2O) are well-known, model differences in its rate of change are due to transport processes that can be separated in the mean residual advection and the isentropic mixing terms in the Transformed Eulerian Mean (TEM) framework. Here the climatological impact of the stratospheric BDC on the long-lived tracer N2O is evaluated through a comparison of its TEM budget in the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM), a chemical reanalysis of the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder version 2 (BRAM2) and in a Chemistry-Transport Model (CTM) driven by four modern reanalyses (ERA-Interim, JRA-55, MERRA and MERRA2). The effects of stratospheric transport on the N2O rate of change, as depicted in this study, have not been compared across this variety of datasets and never investigated in a chemical reanalysis. We focus on the seasonal means and climatological annual cycles of the two main contributions to the N2O TEM budget: the vertical residual advection and the horizontal mixing terms. The N2O mixing ratio in the CTM experiments has a spread of approximately ~ 20 % in the middle stratosphere, reflecting the large diversity in the mean Age of Air obtained with the same experiments. In all datasets the TEM budget is well-closed and the agreement between the vertical advection terms is qualitatively very good in the Northern Hemisphere, and good in the Southern Hemisphere except above the Antarctic region. The datasets do not agree as well with respect to the horizontal mixing term, especially in the Northern Hemisphere where horizontal mixing has a smaller contribution in WACCM than in the reanalyses. WACCM is investigated through three model realizations and a sensitivity test where gravity waves are forced differently in the Southern Hemisphere. The internal variability of the horizontal mixing in WACCM is large in the polar regions, and comparable to the differences between the dynamical reanalyses. The sensitivity test has a relatively small impact on the horizontal mixing term, but significantly changes the vertical advection term and produces a less realistic N2O annual cycle above the Antarctic. In this region, all reanalyses show a large wintertime N2O decrease, which is mainly due to horizontal mixing. This is not seen with WACCM, where the horizontal mixing term barely contributes to the TEM budget. While we must use caution in the interpretation of the differences in this region, where the reanalyses show large residuals of the TEM budget, they could be due to the fact that the polar jet is stronger and not tilted equatorward in WACCM compared with the reanalyses. We also compare the inter-annual variability in the horizontal mixing and the vertical advection terms. As expected, the horizontal mixing term presents a large variability during austral fall and boreal winter in the polar regions. In the Tropics, the inter-annual variability of the vertical advection term is much smaller in WACCM and JRA-55 than in the other experiments. The large residual in the reanalyses and the disagreement between WACCM and the reanalyses in the Antarctic region highlight the need for further investigations on the modeling of transport in this region of the stratosphere.


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