Toward locating the brightest microlensing events on the sky

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-1998

Abstract

It is estimated that a star brighter than visual magnitude 17 is undergoing a detectable gravitational microlensing event, somewhere on the sky, at any given time. It is assumed that both lenses and sources are normal stars drawn from a standard Bahcall-Soneira model of our Galaxy. Furthermore, over the timescale of 1 yr, a star of 15th magnitude or brighter should undergo a detectable gravitational lens amplification. Detecting and studying the microlensing event rate among the brightest 108 stars could yield a better understanding of Galactic stellar and dark matter distributions. Diligent tracking of bright microlensing events with even small telescopes might detect planets orbiting these stellar lenses. © 1998. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Publication Title

Astrophysical Journal

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