We summarize our results based on observations with the NIRI camera on the Gemini North telescope of three Hii galaxies (Mrk 36, UM 408 and UM 461), obtained to identify and determine the ages and masses of the elementary components (the star cluster population) of the starburst regions in compact Hii galaxies. Our preliminary results indicate that

Super star clusters (SSCs) are young massive objects typically observed in starburst galaxies. They consist of millions of stars occupying volumes only several parsecs across. Recent infrared observations of SSCs reveal strong emission lines with moderately supersonic widths (FWHM ~ 50 - 100 km s-1). An additional, much broader and weaker line

The photometric and spectroscopic data of the sample galaxies were obtained at the very large telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at Paranal Observatory during three different runs between 2001 and 2003. The observations were carried out in service mode on May 05 - 2001 July 03 (run 1), April 13 - 2002 June 03 (run 2) and

We present five serendipitous spectroscopic interacting Lyman break galaxy (LBG) pairs and six candidate pairs from our z 3 Keck survey. All galaxies in the pairs exhibit Lyα in emission and we show that this is not a selection effect. A complete investigation of all LBG spectroscopic-photometric pairs with at least one spectroscopically confirmed

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) will cover some 5000 square degrees in the southern hemisphere. The survey will use a set of filters which are derived from the SDSS ugriz set, but are different enough in their passbands to require new standard stars for use by non-DES observers. This is especially true for the DES -z and -Y bands. We present a

In this work we report preliminary results of a search for shortperiod variable stars in the open cluster NGC 6531. In particular we looked for new roAp, Delta-Scuti and gamma-Doradus stars. We collected high-precision V-Bessel time-series data with the SOAR Optical Imager (SOI) at the SOAR 4.1m telescope. The data were reduced using a custom