Enabling Science with Gaia Observations of Naked-Eye Stars
Enabling science with Gaia observations of naked-eye stars J. Sahlmanna,b, J. Mart´ın-Fleitasb,c, A. Morab,c, A. Abreub,d, C. M. Crowleyb,e, E. Jolietb,f aEuropean Space Agency, STScI, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA; bEuropean Space Agency, ESAC, P.O. Box 78, Villanueva de la Canada,˜ 28691 Madrid, Spain; cAurora Technology, Crown Business Centre, Heereweg 345, 2161 CA Lisse, The Netherlands; dElecnor Deimos Space, Ronda de Poniente 19, Ed. Fiteni VI, 28760 Tres Cantos, Madrid, Spain; eHE Space Operations BV, Huygensstraat 44, 2201 DK Noordwijk, The Netherlands; fCalifornia Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA ABSTRACT ESA’s Gaia space astrometry mission is performing an all-sky survey of stellar objects. At the beginning of the nominal mission in July 2014, an operation scheme was adopted that enabled Gaia to routinely acquire observations of all stars brighter than the original limit of G∼6, i.e. the naked-eye stars. Here, we describe the current status and extent of those observations and their on-ground processing. We present an overview of the data products generated for G<6 stars and the potential scientific applications. Finally, we discuss how the Gaia survey could be enhanced by further exploiting the techniques we developed. Keywords: Gaia, Astrometry, Proper motion, Parallax, Bright Stars, Extrasolar planets, CCD 1. INTRODUCTION There are about 6000 stars that can be observed with the unaided human eye. Greek astronomer Hipparchus used these stars to define the magnitude system still in use today, in which the faintest stars had an apparent visual magnitude of 6.
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