The determination of the fundamental cosmological parameters has achieved dramatic progress over the past few years. Using Cepheids and secondary distance indicators, the expansion rate of the Universe is constrained to H0 = 60-75 km s-1 Mpc-1. More stringent constraints can be expected from independent determinations based on the Sunyaev-Ze'dovich

By using the Synspec program with different LTE and NLTE atmospheric models of Alpha Lyrae (Vega, spectral type A0V), we obtain different emitted fluxes. Taking into account the distance from Hipparcos, it is obtained the spectrum that would be observed from Earth for each model. This spectrum is compared with UV calibrations from the IUE and UARS

During the GTC integration phase, the Commissioning Instrument (CI) will be a diagnostic tool for performance verification. The CI features four operation modes-imaging, pupil imaging, Curvature WFS, and high resolution Shack-Hartmann WFS. After the GTC Commissioning we also plan to install a Pyramid WFS. This instrument can therefore serve as a

On two occasions, we obtained nearly simultaneous ~=4 ks snapshot observations of the Galactic black hole and microquasar XTE J1550-564 with Chandra and RXTE near the peak of its 2000 May outburst. The low-energy sensitivity of Chandra and the resolution of the High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (HETGS), coupled with the broad energy

Broad-band images have been obtained at the extremes of the continuum absorption coefficient of the solar atmosphere, at lambda 0.8 mu m and lambda 1.55 mu m. Quiet regions have been observed for different heliocentric angles. The centre-to-limb variation of granulation contrast has been computed in both wavelength ranges and a steeper decrease in

Stellar spectroscopic classification has been successfully automated by a number of groups. Automated classification and parameterization work best when applied to a homogeneous data set, and thus these techniques primarily have been developed for and applied to large surveys. While most ongoing large spectroscopic surveys target extragalactic