The dynamic properties of the quiet Sun photosphere can be investigated by analyzing the pair dispersion of small-scale magnetic fields (i.e., magnetic elements). By using 25 h-long Hinode magnetograms at high spatial resolution (0.3 arcsec), we tracked 68 490 magnetic element pairs within a supergranular cell near the disk center. The computed

The behavior of charged particles near X-type magnetic neutral lines is investigated. The magnetic field is taken to be hyperbolic and time stationary, with a uniform electric field perpendicular to the magnetic field. The general properties of the orbits of noninteracting particles in that field geometry are examined. Approximate analytic

Four years after its announcement at SPIE, FLAMES, the VLT fibre facility, has been completed, integrated into the VLT observatory and commissioned. It has been in operation since February 2003. More than 250000 scientific (single) spectra have been obtained, which have enabled the on-sky performance of the instrument to be compared to the

The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) uses a dedicated 300-fiber, narrow-band near-infrared (1.51-1.7 μm), high resolution (R~22,500) spectrograph to survey approximately 100,000 giant stars across the Milky Way. This three-year survey, in operation since late-summer 2011 as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III

MAGIC, a system of two imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, achieves its best performance under dark conditions, i.e. in absence of moonlight or twilight. Since operating the telescopes only during dark time would severely limit the duty cycle, observations are also performed when the Moon is present in the sky. Here we develop a dedicated

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a European collaborative project promoted by the European Association for Solar Telescopes (EAST) to build a high resolution 4m class solar telescope in the Canary Islands. Since 2008 to 2011 a Design Study has been developed to define the Conceptual Design of EST. During the Design Study, several preliminary