Prompted by the recent report of increased Swift/BAT activity from the neutron star X-ray transient XTE J1701-462 (ATel #3028), the source was observed for ~1.4 ks with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer on 2010 November 13 11:16 UTC. The average count rate from the PCA was 2.0+/-0.2 cts/s/PCU, consistent with the count rate from the Galactic ridge

Context. The design of modern instruments does not only imply thorough studies of instrumental effects but also a good understanding of the scientific analysis planned for the data. Aims: We investigate the reliability of Milne-Eddington (ME) inversions of high-resolution magnetograph measurements such as those to be obtained with the Imaging

By isolating the red clump giant population in the color-magnitude diagrams and inverting their star counts, we can obtain directly the density distribution of the old stellar population along the line of sight. We have applied this method to several near infrared surveys and obtained information on the disc, bulge and long bar. The disc is well

We present multi-slit radial velocity measurements for 111 stars in the direction of the Virgo Stellar Stream (VSS). The stars were photometrically selected to be probable main-sequence stars in the Galactic halo. When compared with the radial velocity distribution expected for the halo of the Milky Way, as well as the distribution seen in a

We present high-resolution images of the Sun in the near-ultraviolet spectral range between 214 nm and 397 nm as obtained from the first science flight of the 1 m SUNRISE balloon-borne solar telescope. The quiet-Sun rms intensity contrasts found in this wavelength range are among the highest values ever obtained for quiet-Sun solar surface

Context. The general properties (e.g., activity class, star formation rates, metallicities, extinctions, average ages, etc.) of luminous (LIRGs) and ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) in the local universe are well known because large samples of these objects have been the subject of numerous spectroscopic works over the past three decades