Context. Low-mass stars have been recognised as promising targets in the search for rocky, small planets with the potential of supporting life. As a consequence, Doppler search programmes using high-resolution spectrographs like HARPS or HARPS-N are providing huge quantities of optical spectra of M dwarfs. However, determining the stellar

Various recent discoveries have drastically altered our view of the Magellanic Clouds (MCs), the nearest interacting galaxy system formed by a low mass spiral and a dwarf irregular galaxy. The best evidence is now that they are on frst infall into the Milky Way, that their stellar populations extend much further than previously thought, and that

Context. Inversion codes are numerical tools used to infer physical properties from observations. Despite their success, the quality of current spectropolarimetric observations and those expected in the near future presents a challenge to current inversion codes. Aims: The pixel-by-pixel strategy of inverting spectropolarimetric data that we

HARMONI is the visible and near infrared integral field spectrograph (IFS) selected as a first-light instrument for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). With four spatial scales and a range of spectral resolving powers, astronomers will optimally configure the instrument to overtake a wide range of scientific programs and to address many

We present deep, high-resolution (R˜40000) UVES at VLT spectrophotometric data of the planetary nebula NGC 3918. This is one of the deepest spectra ever taken of a planetary nebula. We have identified and measured more than 700 emission lines and, in particular, we have detected very faint lines of several neutron-capture elements (s-process

Context. Icy dwarf planets are key for studying the chemical and physical states of ices in the outer solar system. The study of secular and rotational variations gives us hints of the processes that contribute to the evolution of their surface. Aims: The aim of this work is to search for rotational variability on the surface composition of the