Recognition: 2 theorem links
· Lean TheoremThe Pan-STARRS1 Surveys
Pith reviewed 2026-05-08 22:03 UTC · model claude-opus-4-7
The pith
Pan-STARRS1 delivers a public five-band optical survey of three quarters of the sky, calibrated to roughly 10 millimag in flux and a few milliarcseconds in position.
A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.
Core claim
The paper presents the completed Pan-STARRS1 survey program: a 1.8-meter wide-field telescope on Haleakala equipped with a 1.4-gigapixel camera that imaged the entire sky north of declination -30 degrees in five filters (grizy) plus deeper "Medium Deep" patches and specialised cadences for the solar system, M31, and a transit survey. The authors report that the stacked 3π survey reaches 5σ point-source depths of roughly 23.3, 23.2, 23.1, 22.3, 21.4 magnitudes in g, r, i, z, y; that photometric zero points are uniform to 7–12 millimag across the sky; and that, after recalibration to the Gaia reference frame, astrometric residuals are at the few-milliarcsecond level. The deliverable is a publi
What carries the argument
A 1.8-meter telescope feeding a 60-device, 1.4-gigapixel orthogonal-transfer-array camera through a six-filter system (grizy plus a wide w), coupled to an Image Processing Pipeline that detrends, warps onto a fixed sky tessellation, stacks, difference-images, and runs forced PSF photometry on individual epochs at positions defined by the stacks. Photometric closure is enforced by an ubercal-style global solution; astrometric closure is enforced by recalibrating every epoch against the Gaia DR1 frame.
If this is right
- Any northern-hemisphere imaging program now has dense in-field photometric and astrometric standards good to roughly 10 millimag and a few milliarcseconds, removing a long-standing calibration bottleneck.
- Time-domain science that needs deep multi-color reference images — supernova searches, tidal disruption events, microlensing, asteroid recovery — can use the public stacks as templates rather than building their own.
- Three-dimensional dust maps, Milky Way halo structure (RR Lyrae out to ~120 kpc), and high-redshift quasar census work built on PS1 become reproducible from the released catalogs.
- PS1 effectively extends the Gaia astrometric frame to fainter magnitudes over 3π steradians, which can be used to recalibrate archival data including HST imaging.
- The infrastructure choices (skycell tessellation, forced photometry on warps driven by stack detections, ubercal-style photometric closure) become a working template for upcoming wide-field surveys.
Where Pith is reading between the lines
- Editorial inference: the most durable scientific legacy of PS1 may be calibration rather than discovery — it provides a dense, uniform standard-star network that any subsequent northern survey will lean on, including LSST cross-checks.
- Editorial inference: forced photometry on individual warps, seeded by stack detections, sidesteps the intractable PSF discontinuities in coadds and is likely the right default pattern for surveys that combine many epochs of variable image quality.
- Editorial inference: the reported ~10 millimag photometric floor is set largely by unmodeled small-scale PSF variations (optics ripples, atmospheric seeing structure, detector charge diffusion 'tree rings'); pushing below it will require physics-based PSF models, not more averaging.
- Editorial inference: the strategy of pairing red-band (z, y) visits six months apart was a deliberate trade against asteroid linkage, and the modified design quads represent a learned compromise — a useful case study for any survey that has to satisfy both parallax and moving-object cadence in one schedule.
Load-bearing premise
That the global photometric and astrometric closure achieved by tying everything to itself (ubercal) and then to Gaia genuinely reflects the absolute accuracy of the catalog, rather than a tightly self-consistent solution that still carries unmodeled small-scale PSF and detector systematics below the millimag and milliarcsecond floors quoted.
What would settle it
Independent cross-comparison of Pan-STARRS1 catalog photometry and astrometry against Gaia, the Dark Energy Survey, and Hyper Suprime-Cam in overlapping fields: if zero-point residuals exceed the quoted 7–12 millimag floor or astrometric residuals exceed a few milliarcseconds at bright magnitudes in a non-trivial fraction of the sky, the calibration claims fail.
read the original abstract
Pan-STARRS1 has carried out a set of distinct synoptic imaging sky surveys including the $3\pi$ Steradian Survey and the Medium Deep Survey in 5 bands ($grizy_{P1}$). The mean 5$\sigma$ point source limiting sensitivities in the stacked 3$\pi$ Steradian Survey in $grizy_{P1}$ are (23.3, 23.2, 23.1, 22.3, 21.4) respectively. The upper bound on the systematic uncertainty in the photometric calibration across the sky is 7-12 millimag depending on the bandpass. The systematic uncertainty of the astrometric calibration using the Gaia frame comes from a comparison of the results with Gaia: the standard deviation of the mean and median residuals ($ \Delta ra, \Delta dec $) are (2.3, 1.7) milliarcsec, and (3.1, 4.8) milliarcsec respectively. The Pan-STARRS system and the design of the PS1 surveys are described and an overview of the resulting image and catalog data products and their basic characteristics are described together with a summary of important results. The images, reduced data products, and derived data products from the Pan-STARRS1 surveys are available to the community from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at STScI.
Editorial analysis
A structured set of objections, weighed in public.
Referee Report
Summary. This is the first in a series of seven papers documenting the Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) surveys and the public data releases (DR1: stacked 3π data; DR2: individual-epoch and forced photometry) served by MAST. The paper provides a system-level description of the PS1 telescope, the Gigapixel Camera #1 (GPC1), the filter system, the Image Processing Pipeline (IPP), the PSPS database, and the science servers (MOPS, TSS, PCS), then describes the design and execution of the constituent surveys (3π, Medium Deep, Pan-Planets, PAndromeda, Solar System, calibration sub-surveys). Headline performance numbers are reported: 5σ stack point-source depths of (23.3, 23.2, 23.1, 22.3, 21.4) in grizyP1; a 7–12 mmag upper bound on photometric systematic uncertainty across the sky; and astrometric residuals vs Gaia of (2.3, 1.7) mas (std of mean) and (3.1, 4.8) mas (std of median) in (Δra, Δdec). Section 6 characterizes 3π depth, completeness, star/galaxy separation, and catalog usage; Section 7 surveys the consortium science legacy.
Significance. PS1 is a foundational wide-field optical/NIR resource for the northern sky, and this overview is the canonical citation for hundreds of downstream science applications, calibration of subsequent surveys (HSC, DES cross-checks, ATLAS, ASAS-SN, future LSST/Rubin northern-cross checks), and the Gaia-tied astrometric reference frame for the δ > −30° sky. Real strengths to credit: (i) an honest, granular accounting of system limitations (GPC1 artifacts, ~20% static + 2–3% dynamic mask, PSF discontinuities on stacks motivating the forced-warp photometry strategy, the historical "Magic" streak-masking and its removal); (ii) an internally consistent calibration chain combining "ubercal" relative photometry (Schlafly et al. 2012), Calspec absolute tie (Scolnic et al. 2015), and Gaia astrometric recalibration; (iii) a clear data-product schema enabling reproducible queries; (iv) public release through MAST. The paper's role is largely descriptive, but the headline calibration numbers are load-bearing because downstream users adopt them as error budgets.
major comments (6)
- [§5.2, §6.4.3] The headline '7–12 mmag photometric systematic uncertainty' is a spatial-uniformity bound from the ubercal self-consistency analysis (Schlafly et al. 2012), not an end-to-end absolute floor for arbitrary use cases. §5.2 itself notes that PSF-model error driven by atmosphere/optics/detector variations is limited by a ~3′ PSF-modeling spatial scale, and §6.4.3 demonstrates that on stacks, aperture magnitudes are tighter than PSF magnitudes brightward of i ~ 20 because of PSF discontinuities the model cannot follow. The abstract should distinguish (a) relative/large-scale photometric uniformity, (b) per-epoch PSF-photometry precision floor (~12 mmag at the bright end per §5.2), and (c) absolute AB zero-point uncertainty from the Calspec tie. As written, a reader is invited to apply 7–12 mmag as a per-object error budget, which is not what the underlying analysis supports.
- [Abstract & §5.1] The astrometric statement '(2.3, 1.7) mas and (3.1, 4.8) mas' is opaque without restating that these are the standard deviations of the per-region mean and median residuals against Gaia DR1, not single-object positional uncertainties. Please make this explicit in the abstract and in §5.1, including the magnitude/SNR regime in which it holds and the dependence on stellar density (the Galactic-plane behavior is not characterized here). Users will otherwise quote the abstract numbers as a per-source astrometric floor.
- [§6.4.2, Fig. 25] The text concedes that the de Vaucouleurs and Sérsic stack model fits 'show a disappointing large scatter' and recommends caution, yet these columns (StackModelFitDeV, StackModelFitSer, StackModelFitExp) are released as Fundamental Data Products in DR1 (Table 10). Given that this is the public data-release reference paper, please quantify the failure mode (e.g., scatter vs magnitude/size, success rate, comparison to a control sample such as SDSS Stripe 82 or HSC) and either (i) document a recommended quality cut, or (ii) flag the columns as advisory in the schema. Without this, users will adopt these columns at face value.
- [§6.4.4, §4.2.1] The paper notes that the 'bestDetection' field is corrupted in DR2 and 'will be fixed in DR2.1.' For a release reference paper this is load-bearing for any time-domain query workflow built from the documented schema. Please specify the nature of the corruption, the workaround for users running queries before DR2.1, and an expected timeline; otherwise the published light-curve recipe in §6.4.4 is not reproducible from DR2 as released.
- [§6.2, Figs. 16–18] The depth maps are derived from injected fake point sources and the recovery fractions stored in StackDetEffMeta, but the paper does not validate the fakes against real recovery (a forward reference to 'Farrow et al. in preparation' is given). Since the 5σ depths quoted in the abstract and Table 11 are mean values over a highly non-uniform coverage map (Fig. 16), the headline depths should be accompanied by a dispersion or a spatial percentile (e.g., 10th/50th/90th percentile depths per band), and the validation of the fake-source method should be at least sketched here rather than deferred entirely.
- [§2.5, Table 3] Table 3 lists overall fill factor as 76% per exposure but the persistent 'burn-trails' from saturation (described as lasting tens of minutes) and the dynamic 2–3% mask are mentioned only qualitatively. Because these affect the effective number of contributing warps to a given stack pixel — and therefore the local depth and photometric error — please provide either a histogram of effective coverage per filter (beyond the binned-pixel count of Fig. 16) or a quantitative statement of how persistence-driven masking propagates into the StackObjectAttributes uncertainties.
minor comments (13)
- [Abstract] The phrase 'standard deviation of the mean and median residuals' is ambiguous on a first read. Recommend rewording to e.g., 'the per-field-mean and per-field-median Gaia residuals have standard deviations of …' and stating the binning unit.
- [§2.6, Eq. 1–2] Equations (1) and (2) are standard AB-magnitude definitions and could be condensed; the operationally important statement is the 1.2 airmass convention and the absence of a Galactic extinction correction, which currently appears only in running text.
- [Table 4] Percentages sum to 95% (3π 56 + MD 25 + SS 5–11 + PP 4 + PAndromeda 2 + calibration 1+1+1). Please reconcile, or note the residual is engineering/weather-loss time.
- [Fig. 11 caption] Caption contains placeholders 'latitude = XX' and 'width of the HA distribution is XX' — please fill in.
- [§6.4.4] 'will be fixed in DR2.1' contains an internal inconsistency ('corrupted in DR2 ... fixed in DR2.1' was preceded by 'corrupted in DR2'). Please proofread the paragraph; the sentence reads as if the same release is both broken and the fix.
- [§8 Conclusions] '(to wP1 ≃ 22.5 per visit CHECK!)' — leftover editorial marker, please remove or fill in the actual depth.
- [Author list / affiliations] Affiliation numbering is non-monotonic and several affiliations (e.g., 12, 22, 39) appear out of order at the end. Recommend renumbering for the final version.
- [§3.2.3] Several typos: 'celestical sphere' (should be 'celestial'), 'breifly described' (briefly), 'subsytem' appears twice in the MOPS subsection, the MOPS paragraph itself is duplicated nearly verbatim ('As implemented as a subsytem in the Pan-STARRS System...' appears twice in §2.9.1).
- [§2.7.7] 'The intial reference catalog' → 'initial'; 'pixels based' → 'pixel-based'.
- [Table 6] Header says 'originally presented in Rest et al. (2014) and is reproduced here in identical form' — fine, but please confirm permissions/citation conventions are met for verbatim reproduction.
- [Fig. 4 caption] Reproduced from Tonry et al. (2012b); add explicit permission/copyright statement consistent with journal policy.
- [§6.3] The simple (PSF − Kron) < 0.05 star/galaxy cut is shown to fail brightward of i ~ 13.5 (saturated stars) and faintward of i ~ 21. Recommend stating in plain text the recommended magnitude range over which the cut is reliable, since this is the most common entry point for users.
- [References] Several preprints cited as 'arXiv:1612.05xxx' (the companion papers II–VI) — please update to published versions where available before final proofs.
Simulated Author's Rebuttal
We thank the referee for a careful and constructive report that focuses precisely on the load-bearing numbers downstream users will adopt as error budgets. We agree with all five major points and will revise the manuscript accordingly. The principal changes are: (1) the abstract and §5.1–§5.2 will be rewritten to disambiguate the three distinct photometric error budgets (large-scale spatial uniformity, per-epoch PSF precision floor, and absolute AB tie) and to clarify that the Gaia-tied astrometric numbers are dispersions of per-region mean/median residuals rather than single-source uncertainties; (2) Table 11 will be augmented with percentile depths; (3) §6.4.2 will quantify the failure modes of the stack DeV/Sérsic/Exp fits and recommend explicit quality cuts, with the columns flagged as advisory in coordination with Paper VI; (4) §6.4.4 will replace the brief note about the corrupted bestDetection field with a precise description and a worked-example workaround; and (5) §2.5/§6.2 will add a quantitative effective-coverage distribution and explicit statements on how persistence masking propagates into reported uncertainties. One item — an external control-sample comparison (Stripe 82 / HSC) for the extended-source model fits — is in progress but beyond the scope of this overview and will be reported separately.
read point-by-point responses
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Referee: Headline 7–12 mmag is a spatial-uniformity bound, not a per-object error budget; abstract conflates (a) relative uniformity, (b) per-epoch PSF precision floor, and (c) absolute AB zero-point uncertainty.
Authors: We agree with the referee's diagnosis. The 7–12 mmag value derives from the ubercal self-consistency analysis of Schlafly et al. (2012) and characterizes the relative, large-scale photometric uniformity across the sky, not a per-source error floor. We will revise the abstract to explicitly describe this number as the upper bound on the spatial systematic in the relative photometric calibration, and to distinguish it from (b) the ~12 mmag per-epoch PSF-photometry precision floor at the bright end (already noted in §5.2) and (c) the absolute AB zero-point tie via Calspec (Scolnic et al. 2015). A short paragraph will be added at the end of §5.2 restating the three distinct error budgets and warning against using the ubercal number as a per-object PSF-photometry error. We will also cross-reference §6.4.3, which already shows that PSF discontinuities on stacks render aperture magnitudes preferable brightward of i~20. revision: yes
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Referee: The astrometric (2.3, 1.7) / (3.1, 4.8) mas numbers are opaque; clarify they are dispersions of per-region mean/median residuals vs Gaia DR1, not single-object uncertainties; specify magnitude/SNR regime and stellar-density dependence.
Authors: We accept this point. The quoted numbers are the standard deviations of the mean and median (Δra, Δdec) residuals against Gaia DR1 computed in spatial bins, characterizing the systematic floor of the PS1–Gaia frame tie at the bright end where Gaia dominates the reference. We will revise the abstract and §5.1 to state explicitly: (i) that the values are dispersions of per-region (binned) mean/median residuals, not single-source positional errors; (ii) that they apply in the bright regime where stars are well-measured by both Gaia and PS1; and (iii) that single-object astrometric precision in PS1 is SNR- and crowding-limited and is reported in Magnier et al. 2016b (Paper V). Regarding stellar-density dependence: a quantitative characterization in the Galactic plane is not presented in this paper, and we will add an explicit caveat noting that the Gaia-tied calibration was assessed primarily outside the densest plane fields and that users should consult Paper V for plane-specific behavior. revision: yes
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Referee: DeV/Sérsic/Exp stack model fits show large scatter yet are released as Fundamental Data Products; quantify failure mode, recommend quality cuts, or flag columns as advisory.
Authors: The referee is correct that, as the public release reference, the paper should not simply caution and move on. We will (i) add to §6.4.2 a quantitative characterization of the scatter as a function of magnitude and half-light radius for a clean galaxy sample at high Galactic latitude, including the fraction of objects for which each model converged; (ii) provide a recommended quality cut (based on fit χ², size relative to PSF, and S/N thresholds already required for the model fits per §2.7.6); and (iii) coordinate with the schema documentation in Flewelling et al. (2016, Paper VI) and the MAST CasJobs description to flag StackModelFitDeV/Ser/Exp columns as advisory pending the forced-galaxy-shape measurements (ForcedGalaxyShape, §4.2.5), which use the stack fits only as priors and are the recommended product for galaxy morphology. A direct comparison to an external control sample (SDSS Stripe 82 or HSC) is beyond the scope of this overview but is in progress and will be reported in a companion paper. revision: partial
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Referee: bestDetection corrupted in DR2; specify the nature, workaround, and timeline so the §6.4.4 light-curve recipe is reproducible.
Authors: Accepted. We will replace the brief parenthetical in §6.4.4 with an explicit description: the bestDetection flag in DR2 does not consistently identify the highest-S/N unmasked detection per object/filter due to an indexing error in the catalog merge, and as a result joins that rely on bestDetection alone may return a non-optimal epoch. The recommended workaround for users prior to the DR2.1 patch is to query the Detection table directly and select the per-(objID, filter) record with the maximum psfFlux/psfFluxErr subject to the standard quality flags, or to use the ForcedWarpMeasurement table where forced photometry is desired. We will add a worked example query implementing this workaround. The DR2.1 patch is being prepared by the MAST team and we will cite the MAST release-notes page for the up-to-date status rather than commit to a specific calendar date in the manuscript. revision: yes
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Referee: Depth maps from injected fakes are not validated against real recovery; abstract/Table 11 quote means over a non-uniform coverage map; provide percentile depths and at least sketch the validation.
Authors: We agree. We will (i) augment Table 11 with the 10th, 50th, and 90th percentile 5σ stack depths per band, computed over the populated skycells, so the spatial dispersion is visible alongside the mean; (ii) add to §6.2 a short paragraph summarizing the validation of the StackDetEffMeta fake-source recovery against a real-source recovery test on a representative subset of skycells (cross-matching against deeper external catalogs in MD-overlap regions and SDSS Stripe 82 where available), with the full treatment retained in Farrow et al. (in prep.); and (iii) explicitly note in the abstract that the quoted depths are the means of a spatially varying distribution and refer to the revised Table 11 for percentiles. We will also clarify that the limits are for point sources and are typically ~0.5 mag brighter for extended sources (already noted via Metcalfe et al. 2013). revision: yes
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Referee: Persistence burn-trails and dynamic mask are described qualitatively; provide effective coverage histograms or quantify how persistence masking propagates into StackObjectAttributes uncertainties.
Authors: We will add to §2.5/§6.2 a per-filter histogram of the effective number of contributing warps per stack pixel (i.e., the distribution underlying Fig. 16 quantified rather than only displayed as a 2D map), which captures the combined effect of static masking, dynamic burn-trail masking, and survey coverage non-uniformity. We will also add a brief statement that the StackObjectAttributes flux uncertainties are propagated from the per-warp variance images, which already include the masked-pixel bookkeeping, so persistence-driven coverage loss enters the reported errors through the reduced effective exposure depth at the affected pixels rather than as an unmodeled systematic. A full per-pixel persistence model is not included in DR1/DR2; we will state this limitation explicitly. Detailed pixel-level treatment is given in Waters et al. 2016 (Paper III), which we will cross-reference more prominently. revision: yes
- A direct external control-sample validation (SDSS Stripe 82 or HSC) of the StackModelFitDeV/Ser/Exp scatter is not yet available in the manuscript and will be deferred to a companion paper; the present revision will only quantify the internal failure modes and recommend quality cuts.
- We cannot commit in the manuscript to a specific calendar date for the DR2.1 bestDetection patch; we will direct readers to the MAST release-notes page for the current status.
Circularity Check
No significant circularity: descriptive survey/data-release paper whose calibration numbers are internal-consistency metrics tied to external references (Gaia, Calspec).
full rationale
This is a facility and data-release overview paper, not a paper with a single derived theoretical prediction. The relevant question is whether headline calibration claims (7–12 mmag photometric systematic; 2.3/1.7 mas astrometric residuals vs Gaia) are circular by construction. They are not, in the senses this analyzer flags: - The astrometric residuals are computed against Gaia DR1 (Lindegren et al. 2016), which is an external reference frame. The paper explicitly states the comparison is "with Gaia," and Gaia is independent of PS1. The residuals are therefore an external-benchmark check, not a self-comparison. - The photometric 7–12 mmag figure derives from the ubercal analysis (Schlafly et al. 2012) using overlapping PS1 exposures, with the AB zeropoint tied to HST Calspec standards via Scolnic et al. (2014, 2015). Calspec is external. The ubercal procedure does use PS1's own overlapping observations to constrain relative zero points, which is internal-consistency by nature, but the paper presents it correctly as an "upper bound on the systematic uncertainty" / "precision," not as an absolute accuracy claim derived from itself. - The "static sky" reference catalog used after May 2012 is PS1's own re-calibration ("the reference catalog uses Pan-STARRS itself, to create a precise and consistent internal calibration"). This is acknowledged transparently and the absolute tie is then made via Calspec, so it is not load-bearing circularity — it is a documented bootstrapping step with an external anchor. - Self-citations (Magnier et al. companion papers, Schlafly et al. 2012, Tonry et al. 2012b, Scolnic et al. 2015) are to companion or prior PS1 team papers, but they are technical pipeline/calibration references, not invocations of "uniqueness theorems" forbidding alternatives, and the underlying calibration ties to external standards (Gaia, Calspec, 2MASS, Tycho). - Science-result summaries in §7 are descriptive of downstream papers and are not load-bearing claims of this manuscript. The reader's concern that 7–12 mmag is a spatial-uniformity bound rather than an absolute per-object floor is a correctness/scope concern, not circularity. The paper itself notes PSF-model limits on small scales (§5.2) and the "bestDetection" DR2 bug (§6.4.4), so the manuscript is transparent about its limitations. No step reduces a "prediction" to its own input by construction.
Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger
Lean theorems connected to this paper
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IndisputableMonolith/Foundation/DimensionForcingeight_tick_forces_D3 (no connection: paper's filter/cadence structure is empirical, not derived from 2^D=8) unclear?
unclearRelation between the paper passage and the cited Recognition theorem.
3π Steradian Survey covers the sky north of Dec=−30 in five filters (grizy_P1)
What do these tags mean?
- matches
- The paper's claim is directly supported by a theorem in the formal canon.
- supports
- The theorem supports part of the paper's argument, but the paper may add assumptions or extra steps.
- extends
- The paper goes beyond the formal theorem; the theorem is a base layer rather than the whole result.
- uses
- The paper appears to rely on the theorem as machinery.
- contradicts
- The paper's claim conflicts with a theorem or certificate in the canon.
- unclear
- Pith found a possible connection, but the passage is too broad, indirect, or ambiguous to say the theorem truly supports the claim.
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Deep Adaptive Optics Imaging Rules Out a Helium Star Companion to PSR J1928+1815
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Parametric SED Modelling of Protoplanetary Discs: Validation and Application to an Unstudied YSO
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The Zwicky Transient Facility: Data Processing, Products, and Archive
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Tidal disruption of a low-mass star in an active galactic nucleus as the origin of the PS16dtm outburst
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A Search for Variability of Ultracool Dwarfs with the Zwicky Transient Facility
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LAMOST J052016.79+345651.7: An EW-type Binary with Emission Line Spectra and Circumstellar Material
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The Recurrent Nova Population in M31
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4MOST ChANGES: Catalog of high-redshift quasar candidates (4.5 < $z$ < 7) selected with SED fitting
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A Multi-modal Fusion Network for Star-Galaxy Classification from CSST Simulated Datasets
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Galactic Archaeology with the Subaru `\=Onohi`ula Prime Focus Spectrograph Strategic Program
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Multiphase Gas Structure in the Circumnuclear Region of NGC 5506 Observed with ALMA
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The ZTF-ULTRASAT experiment: Characterizing the non-transients in ULTRASAT's high cadence survey
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Design, Testing, and Commissioning of the Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) 80 cm Infrared Telescope
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Analysis of the Gaia DR3 planetary nebula candidates and the possible symbiotic stars among them
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SVOM/C-GFT: Instrumentation and Performances on the SVOM Alerts
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