An analysis of different structures of the spiders supporting the flat mirror of a Newton type telescope was made, in order to reduce the diffraction effects of the spider on the images produced by the telescope. After applying different numerical solutions used by different authors, and without satisfactory results, a novel solution based on the

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Recent results from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have resolved starbursts as collections of compact young stellar clusters. Here we present a photometric catalog of the young stellar clusters in the nuclear starburst of M82, observed with the HST WFPC2 in Hα (F656N) and in four optical broadband filters. We identify 197 young super stellar

Sixteen RR Lyrae variables from the QUEST survey that lie in the leading arm of the tidal stream from the Sagittarius dSph galaxy have been observed spectroscopically to measure their radial velocities and metal abundances. The systemic velocities of 14 stars, which were determined by fitting a standard velocity curve to the individual measurements

(abridged) The {stellar IMF} has been found to be essentially invariant. While some apparent differences are seen, the uncertainties inherent to this game do not allow a firm conclusion to be made that the IMF varies systematically with conditions. The IMF integrated over entire galaxies, however, is another matter. Chemical and photometric

We present radial-velocity measurements obtained using high- and intermediate-resolution spectroscopic observations of the classical T Tauri star UZ Tau East from 1994 to 1996. We also provide measurements of Hα equivalent widths and optical veiling. Combining our radial-velocity data with those recently reported by Prato et al. (2002), we improve