The study of the early Universe relies on our ability to check our models by analyzing the behaviour of astrophysical objects at conditions close to those of the first epochs. Low-metallicity nearby galaxies with young massive stars may be used as laboratories to study these objects that have been proposed as active agents of the reionization of

FERRE is a data analysis code written in FORTRAN90. It matches models to data, taking a set of observations and identifying the model parameters that best reproduce the data, in a chi-squared sense. Model predictions are to be given as an array whose values are a function of the model parameters, i.e. numerically. FERRE holds this array in memory

We show that the use of apodizing functions at the coronagraph Lyot plane may be useful for improving the image contrast of ground-based coronagraphs. An experimental set-up consisting of a tip-tilt mirror, a coronagraph and a low-noise EMCCD camera was implemented at the William Herschel Telescope. Images were taken in the I band, which meant that

Inhomogeneous plasmas and fluids contain energy stored in inhomogeneity and they naturally tend to relax into lower energy states by developing instabilities or by diffusion. But the actual amount of energy in such inhomogeneities has remained unknown. In the present work, the amount of energy stored in a density gradient is calculated for several

The details of bulge formation via collapse, mergers, secular processes or their interplay remain unresolved. To start answering this question and quantify the importance of distinct mechanisms, we mapped a sample of three galactic bulges using data from the integral field spectrograph WiFeS on the ANU's 2.3-m telescope in Siding Spring Observatory

The number of known very high energy (VHE) blazars is ˜50, which is very small in comparison to the number of blazars detected in other frequencies. This situation is a handicap for population studies of blazars, which emit about half of their luminosity in the γ-ray domain. Moreover, VHE blazars, if distant, allow for the study of the environment