Models for superbursts from neutron stars involving carbon shell flashes predict that the mass accretion rate should be anywhere in excess of one tenth of the Eddington limit. Yet, superbursts have so far only been detected in systems for which the accretion rate is derived to be between 0.1 and 0.25 times that limit. The question arises whether

SUNRISE is a balloon-borne solar telescope with an aperture of 1m, working in the UV/VIS optical domain. The main scientific goal of SUNRISE is to understand the structure and dynamics of the magnetic field in the atmosphere of the Sun. SUNRISE will provide diffraction-limited images of the photosphere and chromosphere with an unpredecented

We present near infrared (J, H and Ks) observations of a 5'× 10' sample field in the Serpens Star Formation region obtained with SOFI at the NTT. These observations are sensitive enough to detect a 20 MJup brown dwarf through an extinction of AV˜ 16 and are used to build an infrared census of this field in the cluster. From photometry and mass

We are carrying out a project for studying all the Second Byurakan Survey (SBS) interacting systems of galaxies at z 0.1. The objectives of this project are: (1) to link the histories of the star formation and nuclear activity in these systems with the morphologic type of the interacting galaxies; (2) to settle upper limits to the age of the

We analyze the stellar distribution in the Galactic disk via NIR color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs). Extinction measurements in the K band are also extracted from the diagrams both for supporting stellar counts predictions of the Besaçon and "SKY" models and for comparing with a three dimensional model of the Galactic extinction. The method is based

The STARE instrument was the first to detect the transits of an extrasolar planet in 1999. To date it has performed one of the longest running searches for transits, being in nearly continous operations since July 2001 at Teide Observatory, Tenerife. We describe the instrumental setup and the scheme that is used for data acquisition, handling and