The hold-down, release and deployment mechanisms designed for SMOS PLM MIRAS have been a challenging activity in terms of design compromise, schedule and cost effectiveness. The existing design coming from previous phase was totally reanalysed to be adapted to a specific mission with extra requirements, making the previous design not totally valid

We present first measurements and the calibration procedure for the Polarimetric Littrow Spectrograph (POLIS) operated at the Vacuum Tower Telescope on Tenerife, together with a brief summary of the technical characteristics of the instrument. In its present configuration, we achieve a polarimetric accuracy of about 3 × 10-3 in the visible channel

We present high resolution spectroscopy of the common proper motion system FH Leo (components HD 96273 and BD+07 2411B), which has been classified as a novalike variable due to an outburst observed by Hipparcos, and we present and review the available photometry. We show from our spectra that neither star can possibly be a cataclysmic variable

New optical spectroscopy of the high-mass X-ray binary microquasar LS I +61 303 is presented. Eccentric orbital fits to our radial velocity measurements yield updated orbital parameters in good agreement with previous work. Our orbital solution indicates that the periastron passage occurs at radio phase 0.23 and the X-ray/radio outbursts are

Spectra of the optical counterpart to the gamma ray source SWIFT J1753.5-0127 (ATEL #546,#547,#549,#550) were acquired on 2005 July 3th 03:52-09:48 UT with the FAST spectrograph mounted at the F. L. Whipple Observatory 1.5m telescope. The spectra show a blue continuum with Halpha being the only emission line detected in the averaged spectrum (S/N

We report preliminary optical/infrared photometry and spectroscopy of the SWIFT J1753.3-0127 transient (ATEL #546, #549) obtained at Fred Whipple Observatory (FLWO), Mt. Hopkins, AZ. Nightly R-band photometry was acquired with the FLWO 1.2m telescope between July 2-11 2005 UT achieving a PSF FWHM of 1.8-2.8 arcsec and typically using 60s exposure