Resumen:

Light pollution is widely recognized as a global problem that, like other forms of anthropogenic pollution, has significant impacts on ecosystems and adverse effects on living organisms. In recent years, it has emerged as a fertile field for interdisciplinary scientific research, socioeconomic studies, and wide-ranging cultural debates. Chile is widely known for its rich and distinctive ecosystems, and the superb quality of its northern skies has transformed it into one of the most important astronomical nodes in the world. Nevertheless, a coordinated scientific approach to characterize, quantify and monitor the effects of ALAN on the Chilean sky has started only recently. Our interdisciplinary research group on ALAN was born five years ago with the explicit purpose of filling this need, and aims at providing the international community with the first spectro-photometric characterization of one of the most pristine skies of planet Earth. Since 2019 we have been regularly monitoring about twenty distinctive sites across the Coquimbo Region (also known as "Regi\'on Estrella"), including professional astronomical observatories, astrotourism centers, natural parks, and metropolitan areas. In this contribution I will introduce our research group by describing its raison d$^\prime\hat{e}$tre; stating its short, medium and long-term goals; and presenting the first results of its surveying campaigns. We further describe how our scientific projects and outreach initiatives, through a constant synergy with public and private institutions, contribute to heighten public awareness about the subtle but devastating effects of light pollution. Finally, we offer an example where our scientific conclusions have supported different public committees in taking more enlightened decisions to preserve the darkness of the Chilean sky, a natural and cultural heritage that is our scientific, social and moral obligation to defend and preserve.

Resumen:

Data analysis in space sciences has been done exclusively visually for many years, even when there is evidence that more than one sensory style is possible (as is the case of sonification). Maintaining the data analysis exclusively with visual tools not only limits the study of the unknown to the current resolution of the screens but also excludes a group of people who present different degrees of visual impairment. Considering those above and that people with functional diversity experience a large number of barriers to achieving higher education and stable jobs, within the framework of my doctoral thesis, a new modality to access scientific data from space sciences was investigated. SonoUno is a product of this research that makes possible a multisensory display (use of more than one sense) of data files with two or more columns, taking into account the accessibility and inclusion of people with functional diversity from the beginning. Based on the fact that multisensory perception can be a good complement to visual exploration for the understanding of complex scientific data, and the exchange and feedback received from users over six years, sonoUno presents a framework focused on the user and is an application that can be used independently on the computer or through a web page. Additionally, the package presents different scripts for specific sonifications and for use in bash. The work presented here maintains the next fundamental pillars: providing solutions and removing barriers (in education and scientific work, up to now); the use of free programming languages; and the design of infrastructure to improve inclusion.

Resumen:

We present the new design of the ATLAS unit (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System to be installed at Teide Observatory (TO) in Tenerife island (Spain), and the results of the ongoing tests of the first module (ATLAS-P). ATLAS-Teide, the 5th ATLAS unit, will be built by the IAC and will be operated as part of the ATLAS network in the framework of an operation and science exploitation agreement between the IAC and the UH. ATLAS is an asteroid impact early warning system developed by the UH and funded by NASA. It consists of four telescopes (Hawaii ×2, Chile and South Africa). Each ATLAS unit maps ¼ of the night sky making 4 observations of each field at hourly intervals, reaching the detection of V=19.5 with the aim of detecting small (~20 m) asteroids in impact trajectories several days before the impact, and a 100 m asteroid several weeks before. In its current setup, an ATLAS unit consist of a 50cm Wright-Schmidt telescope and a CCD camera capable of imaging 30 deg2 in a single shot. ATLAS-Teide will have a different modular design based on commercial on the shelf (COTS) components. Each module will have an effective diameter of 56 cm, with a 7.3 deg2 field of view and a 1.26 “/pix plate scale. The first prototype module (ATLAS-P) was installed at TO late 2022 with the aim of testing the new design capabilities and to develop all the control and reduction software needed to fully integrate ATLAS-Teide in the ATLAS network. First results obtained with ATLAS-P showing that it fulfill ATLAS requirements allowing to detect asteroids at V=20.2 in 30s exposures are presente and the benefits of the new ATLAS design are discussed in this work.

Resumen:

The S-PLUS DR4 contains photometric observations for an area of $\sim$ 3000 deg$^2$ of the southern sky. The optical filter system consists of 5 SDSS-like broad bands and 7 narrow bands centered in stellar features. Here we will describe the machine learning strategies and performance metrics for the star/quasar/galaxy classification (Nakazono et al. 2021) and the estimation of quasar photometric redshifts (Nakazono \\& Ruiz et al. in preparation). Moreover, we will discuss the importance of the narrow-band information for these tasks. The value-added catalogs that resulted from our work are public and can be broadly used by the astronomical community. We will describe our catalogs in terms of magnitude distribution, photometric redshift distribution, and density maps for different data quality criteria. Information on how to access these photometric catalogs via the S-PLUS website (https://splus.cloud), Python (with splusdata package) or TAP queries will also be given.