We present deep near-infrared Ks -band Anglo-Australian Telescope Infrared Imager and Spectrograph observations of a selected sample of nearby barred spiral galaxies, including some with the strongest known bars. The sample covers a range of Hubble types from SB0- to SBc. The goal is to determine if the torque strengths of the spirals correlate

Although the stellar initial mass function (IMF) has only been directly determined in star clusters, it has been manifoldly applied on galaxy-wide scales. But taking the clustered nature of star formation into account the galaxy-wide IMF is constructed by adding all IMFs of all young star clusters leading to an integrated galactic initial mass

High-resolution imaging observations from the Hinode spacecraft in the Ca II H line are employed to study the dynamics of the chromosphere above a sunspot. We find that umbral flashes and other brightenings produced by the oscillation are extremely rich in fine structure, even beyond the resolving limit of our observations (0farcs22). The umbra is

The observations of NGC 1997 and OHSC 28 were performed using the Tektronix 2K CCD #3 at the 0.9m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) on 1997 December 20 and 23, respectively, while those of NGC 1697, SL 133 and SL 663 were obtained with the Danish Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera (DFOSC) on the 1.54m Danish

The CoRoT space mission routinely provides high-precision photometric measurements of thousands of stars that have been continuously observed for months. The discovery and characterization of the first very massive transiting planetary companion with a short orbital period is reported. A series of 34 transits was detected in the CoRoT light curve

We present high-resolution (R ~ 50, 000) observations of near-IR transitions of CO and CN of the five known hydrogen-deficient carbon (HdC) stars and four R Coronae Borealis (RCB) stars. We perform an abundance analysis of these stars by using spectrum synthesis and state-of-the-art MARCS model atmospheres for cool hydrogen-deficient stars. Our