Royal Institute and Observatory of the Spanish Navy

About: Royal Institute and Observatory of the Spanish Navy is a facility organization based out in San Fernando, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Gamma-ray burst & Magnetic anomaly. The organization has 50 authors who have published 106 publications receiving 2565 citations. The organization is also known as: Instituto y Observatorio de Marina de San Fernando.

The bright optical afterglow of the long GRB 001007

Abstract: We present optical follow up observations of the long GRB 001007 between 6.14 hours and ∼468 days after the event. An unusually bright optical afterglow (OA) was seen to decline following a steep power law decay with index α = -2.03 ′ 0.11, possibly indicating a break in the light curve at t - t 0 < 3.5 days. as found in other bursts. Upper limits imposed by the LOTIS alerting system 6.14 hours after the gamma ray event provide tentative (1.2σ) evidence for a break in the optical light curve. The spectral index β of the OA yields - 1.24 ′ 0.57. These values may be explained both by several fireball jet models and by the cannonball model. Fireball spherical expansion models are not favoured. Late epoch deep imaging revealed the presence of a complex host galaxy system, composed of at least two objects located 1.2" (1.7σ) and 1.9" (2.7σ) from the afterglow position.

A new proposal to improve the description of astronomical resources: The case of historical star catalogues

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that some important astronomical information is still not taken into account in the documental description of historical star catalogues. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 28 historical star catalogues (eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries) from the Royal Institute and Observatory of the Spanish Navy was selected in order to analyse their structure and to identify information patterns. Findings – The analysis shows that there are a number of technical parameters which are not present in the cataloguing standards and which should be taken into account in the bibliographic descriptions of these specialised documents since they are of great interest to astronomers and astrophysicists. On the other hand, star catalogues provide some cartographic information which can be described by these standards but whose corresponding fields are not widely used by cataloguers. Originality/value – A proposal of new technical parameters is given in order to tr...

The 2015 TWSTFT calibration for UTC and related time links

Abstract: Two-Way Satellite Time and Frequency Transfer (TWSTFT or TW) is one of the primary time transfer techniques for UTC generation. In this framework the Triangle Closure Calibration (TCC) method has been used to calibrate links between certain laboratories whose links to the pivot lab are directly calibrated. TCC is based upon requiring the closure of three co-joined links to be zero. In this paper, the results of the 2015 calibration computation are presented. The uncertainties are usually below 2 ns.

GPS time link calibrations in the frame of EURAMET Project 1156

Abstract: Since 2010 ROA has supported the coordination of the EURAMET Technical Committee for Time and Frequency (TC-TF) Project 1156, a response from EURAMET TC-TF to Recommendation 2 of CCTF 2009: to study the characterization of GNSS equipment in use for establishing the time links between institutes contributing with their clocks to TAI. Starting that year, a GPS calibration campaign was organized between three contributing laboratories: ROA (Spain), PTB (Germany) and INRIM (Italy). The time transfer results were achieved by using the P3 method, and also carrier phase PPP comparison techniques. These results were also used to re-calibrate the TWSTFT (Two-Way Satellite Time and Frequency Transfer, TW for short) links between labs, with an uncertainty slightly higher than that of the GPS links. During 2011 and 2012, the campaign was repeated, and in 2012 two other laboratories were included in the calibration trip: NPL (United Kingdom) and OP (France). In this paper we report the calibration results, with a focus on the long term stabilities of the GPS and TW links between the visited labs.

A new data analysis technique in the study of mutual event lightcurves

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to develop a new methodology for analyzing astronomical data, in particular, one of the light curves obtained in the PHEMU campaign in 1997, where the mutual phenomena between Jupiter and its satellites were observed from the Earth due to the coincidence of the equatorial plane of Jupiter and the orbit plane of the Earth. The more specific aim of this study is to determine the times of the beginning and the end of the phenomena, and the moment when the recorded light flux was at a minimum. The techniques we applied were based on the wavelet theory, which allows us to study a signal from its approximations and details at different scales. Before applying the designed algorithm to our experimental data, we considered a synthetic light curve in order to check the reliability of our method. It should be mentioned that the results are not relevant from the astronomical point of view, since no corrections for albedo or illumination were applied to the recorded data.