In July 2001, AutoFib-2 (AF2), the prime focus robotic fiber positioner for the Isaac Newton Group's (ING) 4.2m William Hershel Telescope (WHT) had its new Small Fiber Module (SFM) successfully commissioned. The new SFM contains 150 science fibers and 10 fiducial bundles. Each science fiber has a diameter of 90 μm, which corresponds to 1.6 arcsec

Analyses of stellar spectra often begin with the determination of a number of parameters that define a model atmosphere. This work presents a prototype for an automated spectral classification system that uses a 150-Å-wide region around Hβ, and applies to stars of spectral types A-K with normal (scaled solar) chemical composition. The new tool

The observation of comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR) with XMM-Newton is a highlight in the field of cometary research. During 17 hours of almost uninterrupted observations, more than one million photons were recorded with unprecedented spectral resolution. The results obtained so far clearly demonstrate that the X-ray emission is caused by charge exchange

IAUC 8080 available at Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams.

We report on the ongoing VLT Laser Guide Star Facility project, which will allow the ESO UT4 telescope to produce an artificial reference star for the Adaptive Optics systems NAOS-CONICA and SINFONI. A custom developed dye laser producing >10W CW at 589nm is installed on-board of the UT4 telescope, then relayed by means of a single mode optical

We have identified a new early T dwarf only 3.6 pc from the Sun, as a common proper motion companion (separation 1459 AU) to the K5V star varepsilon Indi (HD 209100). As such, varepsilon Indi B is one of the highest proper motion sources outside the solar system ( ~ 4.7 arcsec/yr), part of one of the twenty nearest stellar systems, and the nearest