PyCS : Python Curve Shifting — pycs 2.0 documentation
COSMOGRAIL is the COS mological MO nitoring of GRA v I tational L enses. Our project is aimed at measuring time delays for most known lensed quasars, from optical light curves obtained with small but (almost) dedicated telescopes in the northern and southern hemispheres.
COSMOGRAIL involves people from different countries, spanning a broad range of expertise. The goal is to measure individual time delays with an accuracy below 3%, in order to determine the Hubble constant H 0 . A stand-alone measurement of H 0 is highly complementary to other cosmological probes, such as the observations of the CMB made by the ESA Planck mission. This complementarity will help us to understand better the so called “dark energy” which is driving the accelerated expansion of our Universe.
Measuring time delays is difficult, but not as difficult as it first appeared in the late 80s when the first monitoring programs were started. Obtaining regular observing time on telescopes in good sites was (and is still) not easy and the small angular separations between the quasar images require to perform accurate photometry of blended objects, sometimes with several quasar images plus the lensing galaxy within the seeing disk.
PyCS : Python Curve Shifting — pycs 2.0 documentation