We present a spectrophotometric study of short-term optical variability in the quiescent black hole X-ray transient V404 Cyg. This includes two nights of high-time-resolution Hα spectroscopy with which we resolve much of the time variability, and a further six nights of archival spectroscopy with lower time resolution but higher spectral resolution

At the First International Conference on Comet Hale-Bopp (Canaries, 1998) many astronomers agreed with the value of the period of axial rotation of its nucleus, which was obtained by observers by a comparison of the two sequential patterns of the dust arcs. It was noted that the pattern had been repeated each ~12 hours. The value 11.35 h was taken

Globular cluster systems of 17 elliptical galaxies have been studied in the Coma Cluster of galaxies. Surface-brightness fluctuations have been used to determine total populations of globular clusters, and specific frequency (SN) has been evaluated for each individual galaxy. Enormous differences in SN between similar galaxies are found. In

M32 is the prototype for the relatively rare class of galaxies referred to as compact ellipticals. It has been suggested that M32 may be a tidally disturbed r1/4 elliptical galaxy or the remnant bulge of a disk-stripped early-type spiral galaxy. This Letter reveals that the surface brightness profile, the velocity dispersion measurements, and the

HR1217 is a prototypical rapidly oscillating Ap star that has presented a test to the theory of non-radial stellar pulsation. Prior observations showed a clear pattern of five modes with alternating frequency spacings of 33.3 and 34.6μHz, with a sixth mode at a problematic spacing of 50.0μHz (which equals to the high-frequency side. Asymptotic

In this letter, we report the discovery of the first young early L-dwarf in the Serpens cloud. It is obscured by more than ten magnitudes of visual absorption and was found during a near infrared (NIR) photometric survey of a 50 square arcmin area in the Serpens cloud, deep enough to probe the substellar domain. After selection from NIR colour