Swift J1357.2-0933 is a confirmed very faint black hole X-ray transient and has a short estimated orbital period of 2.8 h. We observed Swift J1357.2-0933 for ˜50 ks with XMM-Newton in 2013 July during its quiescent state. The source is clearly detected at a 0.5-10 keV unabsorbed flux of ˜3 × 10-15 erg cm-2 s-1. If the source is located at a

While studies of gas-phase metallicity gradients in disc galaxies are common, very little has been done towards the acquisition of stellar abundance gradients in the same regions. We present here a comparative study of the stellar metallicity and age distributions in a sample of 62 nearly face-on, spiral galaxies with and without bars, using data

Context. Planetary studies demand precise and accurate stellar parameters as input for inferring the planetary properties. Different methods often provide different results that could lead to biases in the planetary parameters. Aims: In this work, we present a refinement of the spectral synthesis technique designed to treat fast rotating stars

We observed the Ultraluminous X-ray Source (ULX) IC 342 X-1 simultaneously in X-ray and radio with Chandra and the JVLA to investigate previously reported unresolved radio emission coincident with the ULX. The Chandra data reveal a spectrum that is much softer than observed previously and is well modelled by a thermal accretion disc spectrum. No

We present Roche tomograms of the K4V secondary star in the cataclysmic variable AE Aqr, reconstructed from two data sets taken 9 d apart, and measure the differential rotation of the stellar surface. The tomograms show many large, cool starspots, including a large high-latitude spot and a prominent appendage down the trailing hemisphere. We find

We present high-angular (~0.''4) resolution mid-infrared (MIR) polarimetric observations in the 8.7 μm and 11.6 μm filters of Cygnus A using CanariCam on the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio CANARIAS. A highly polarized nucleus is observed with a degree of polarization of 11% ± 3% and 12% ± 3% and a position angle of polarization of 27° ± 8° and 35° ± 8° in