Proper motion

Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more distant stars. The components for proper motion in the equatorial coordinate system (of a given epoch, often J2000.0) are given in the direction of right ascension (μα) and of declination (μδ). Their combined value is computed as the total proper motion (μ). It has dimensions of angle per time, typically arcseconds per year or milliarcseconds per year. Knowledge of the proper motion, distance, and radial velocity allows calculations of an object's motion from our star system's frame of reference and its motion from the galactic frame of reference – that is motion in respect to the Sun, and by coordinate transformation, that in respect to the Milky Way. Introduction Over the course of centuries, stars appear to maintain nearly fixe

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The aim of this course is to acquire the basic knowledge on specific dynamical phenomena related to the origin, equilibrium, and evolution of star clusters, galaxies, and galaxy clusters.

Introduce the students to general relativity and its classical tests.

Cosmology is the study of the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole. This course describes the principal themes of cosmology, as seen from the point of view of observations.

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The Hidden Past of M92: Detection and Characterization of a Newly Formed 17 degrees Long Stellar Stream Using the Canada-France Imaging Survey

Nicolas Lawrence Etienne Longeard

We present an analysis of the structure, kinematics, and orbit of a newly found stellar stream emanating from the globular cluster M92 (NGC 6341). This stream was discovered in an improved matched-filter map of the outer Galaxy, based on a "color-color-magnitude" diagram, created using photometry from the Canada-France Imaging Survey and the Pan-STARRS 1 3 pi survey. We find the stream to have a length of 17 degrees (2.5 kpc at the distance of M92), a width dispersion of 029(42 pc), and a stellar mass of [3.17 0.89] x 10(4)M(10% of the stellar mass of the current main body of M92). We examine the kinematics of main-sequence, red giant, and blue horizontal branch stars belonging to the stream and that have proper motion measurements from the second data release of Gaia.N-body simulations suggest that the stream was likely formed very recently (during the last similar to 500 Myr) forcing us to question the orbital origin of this ancient, metal-poor globular cluster.

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2020

The Pristine survey - X. A large population of low-metallicity stars permeates the Galactic disc

Pascale Jablonka, Nicolas Lawrence Etienne Longeard, Romain Ely Roland Lucchesi, Pierre North

The orbits of the least chemically enriched stars open a window on the formation of our Galaxy when it was still in its infancy. The common picture is that these low-metallicity stars are distributed as an isotropic, pressure-supported component since these stars were either accreted from the early building blocks of the assembling Milky Way (MW), or were later brought by the accretion of faint dwarf galaxies. Combining the metallicities and radial velocities from the Pristine and LAMOST surveys and Gaia DR2 parallaxes and proper motions for an unprecedented large and unbiased sample of 1027 very metal poor stars at [Fe/H]

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2020

Pristine dwarf galaxy survey - I. A detailed photometric and spectroscopic study of the very metal-poor Draco II satellite

Pascale Jablonka, Nicolas Lawrence Etienne Longeard

We present a detailed study of the faint Milky Way satellite Draco II (Dra II) from deep CFHT/MegaCam broad-band g and i photometry and narrow-band metallicity-sensitive CaliK observations, along with follow-up Keck II/DEIMOS multi-object spectroscopy. Forward modelling of the deep photometry allows us to refine the structural and photometric properties of Dra II: the distribution of stars in colour-magnitude space implies Dra II is old (13.5 +/- 0.5 Gyr), very metal-poor, very faint (L-v = 180(-72)(+124) L-circle dot), and at a distance d = 21.5 +/- 0.4 kpc. The narrow-band, metallicity-sensitive Cal-IK Pristine photometry confirms this very low metallicity ([Fe/H] = -2.7 +/- 0.1 dex). Even though our study benefits from a doubling of the spectroscopic sample size compared to previous investigations, the velocity dispersion of the system is still only marginally resolved (sigma(vr) < 5.9 km s(-1) at the 95 per cent confidence level) and confirms that Dra II is a dynamically cold stellar system with a large recessional velocity (< v(r)> = -342.5(-1.2)(+1.1)km s(-)1). We further show that the spectroscopically confirmed members of Dra II have a mean proper motion of (mu(alpha)*, mu(delta)) = (1.26 +/- 0.27, 0.94 +/- 0.28) mas/yr in the Gaia DR2 data, which translates to an orbit with a pericentre and an apocentre of 21.3(-1.0)(+0.7) and 153.8(-34.7)(+56.7) kpc, respectively. Taken altogether, these properties favour the scenario of Dra II being a potentially disrupting dwarf galaxy. The low-significance extra-tidal features we map around the satellite tentatively support this scenario.

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2018

Star

A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night;

Milky Way

The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be

Apparent magnitude

Apparent magnitude (m) is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and any e

The aim of this course is to acquire the basic knowledge on specific dynamical phenomena related to the origin, equilibrium, and evolution of star clusters, galaxies, and galaxy clusters.

Introduce the students to general relativity and its classical tests.

Cosmology is the study of the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole. This course describes the principal themes of cosmology, as seen from the point of view of observations.