We carried out multi-object spectroscopic observations of A610, A725, and A796 in November 2004 and January 2005. We used AF2/WYFFOS, the multi-object, wide-field, fiber spectrograph working at the prime focus of the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope (WHT, Island of La Palma, Spain). (3 data files).

Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT) monitoring observations of V458 Vul (Nova Vul 2007, S. Nakano, IAUC 8861) have found it to be entering a new phase characterised by a highly variable supersoft X-ray component accompanied by partially anti-correlated variations in the ultraviolet. An earlier report of entry into the supersoft phase (ATel #1246) has

Aims: The CoRoT satellite has announced its fourth transiting planet (Aigrain et al. 2008, A&A, 488, L43) with space photometry. We describe and analyse complementary observations of this system performed to establish the planetary nature of the transiting body and to estimate the fundamental parameters of the planet and its parent star. Methods

CoRoT, the first space-based transit search, provides ultra-high-precision light curves with continuous time-sampling over periods of up to 5 months. This allows the detection of transiting planets with relatively long periods, and the simultaneous study of the host star's photometric variability. In this Letter, we report the discovery of the

A high-resolution spectroscopic survey of post-outburst novae reveals short-lived heavy element absorption systems in a majority of novae near maximum light, having expansion velocities of 400-1000 km s-1 and velocity dispersions between 35 and 350 km s-1. A majority of systems are accelerated outward, and they all progressively weaken and

The atmospheric Cherenkov telescope MAGIC for ground-based gamma-ray astronomy is operating since late 2003 on the Canary island of La Palma. Its 17 m diameter mirror is composed of 964 square all-aluminum mirrors of ˜0.5m side, making up a parabola of 236 m2 area. Each mirror is composed of a sandwich of two thin aluminum layers interspaced by a