Space Photometry with BRITE-Constellation

TL;DR

BRITE-Constellation is a space-based photometry mission that monitors bright stars across the Milky Way, enabling high-precision, continuous observations crucial for stellar research, especially on massive and hot stars.

Contribution

This paper introduces BRITE-Constellation, a novel space-based photometry system that provides high-precision, long-duration observations of bright stars, enhancing stellar understanding beyond ground-based capabilities.

Findings

High-precision photometry achieved from space

Continuous long-term observations of bright stars

Focus on massive and hot stars in the HR diagram

Abstract

BRITE-Constellation is devoted to high-precision optical photometric monitoring of bright stars, distributed all over the Milky Way, in red and/or blue passbands. Photometry from space avoids the turbulent and absorbing terrestrial atmosphere and allows for very long and continuous observing runs with high time resolution and thus provides the data necessary for understanding various processes inside stars (e.g., asteroseismology) and in their immediate environment. While the first astronomical observations from space focused on the spectral regions not accessible from the ground it soon became obvious around 1970 that avoiding the turbulent terrestrial atmosphere significantly improved the accuracy of photometry and satellites explicitly dedicated to high-quality photometry were launched. A perfect example is BRITE-Constellation, which is the result of a very successful cooperation between Austria, Canada and Poland. Research highlights for targets distributed nearly over the entire HRD are presented, but focus primarily on massive and hot stars.