Detailed observations of the second solar spectrum have shown a complex phenomenology whose detailed interpretation is still in a preliminary phase. The only certain thing is that the observed polarization is due to the phenomenon of resonance scattering. It is well known that such polarization can be strongly modified by the presence of a magnetic

A lunar eclipse offers a unique opportunity to investigate the Earth's atmosphere. Even at its darkest, the Moon in umbra is still lit by solar photons refracted and scattered during their passage through the Earth's terminator. A recent ground-based observation of the 16 Aug 2008 eclipse [1] has shown that the spectrum of the light reflected from

Luminous Compact Blue Galaxies (LCBGs) are high surface brightness starburst galaxies bluer than a typical SBc and with typical luminosities ≈ L ⋆, which are undergoing a major burst of star formation. LCBGs are the closest counterparts to the large population of starburst galaxies observed at high redshift, including Lyman-break galaxies at z ≈ 2

Solar magnetic fields are usually extrapolated into the corona starting from photospheric mag-netic measurements that can suffer from significant uncertainties caused by the presence of unresolved fine structures due to a limited spatial resolution and by the limited polarimet-ric accuracy and spectral resolution. We investigate how these

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We present a short summary of the activities developed by GUAIX, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) Group of Extragalactic Astrophysics and Astronomical Instrumentation. At present we are focused in the development of data reduction pipelines for several future instruments for the Spanish 10m GTC (Gran Telescopio Canarias). The careful