We present deep long-slit optical spectra for a sample of 36 ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs), taken with the William Herschel Telescope on La Palma with the aim of investigating the star formation histories and testing evolutionary scenarios for such objects. Here we present the sample, the analysis techniques and a general overview of the

The Radiometer Electronics Box Assembly (REBA) is the control and data processing on board computer of the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) of the Planck mission (ESA). The REBA was designed and built incorporating state of the art processors, communication interfaces and real time operating system software in order to meet the scientific performance

Context: Eight accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars (AMXPs) are known to date. Although these systems are well studied at high energies, very little information is available for their optical/NIR counterparts. Up to now, only two of them, SAX J1808.4-3658 and IGR J00291+5934, have a secure multi-band detection of their optical counterparts in

We study the accretion/ejection processes (i.e. disc/jet coupling) in the neutron star X-ray binary Aquila X-1 via a multiwavelength approach. We use in the radio band the publicly available Very Large Array archive containing observations of the object between 1986 and 2005, in the X-ray band the archival Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer data

Aims. The aim of this work is to shed some light on the problem of the formation of carbon stars of R-type from a detailed study of their chemical composition. Methods: We use high-resolution and high signal-to-noise optical spectra of 23 R-type stars (both early- and late-types) selected from the Hipparcos catalogue. The chemical analysis is made

We present the discovery of substellar-mass companions to three stars by the ongoing Penn State-Toruń Planet Search conducted with the 9.2 m Hobby-Eberly Telescope. The K2-dwarf, BD+14 4559, has a 1.5 MJ minimum mass companion with the orbital period of 269 days and shows a non-linear, long-term radial velocity (RV) trend, which indicates a