Context: We present the CoRoT light curve of the β Cep star HD 180642, assembled during the first long run of the space mission, as well as archival single-band photometry. Aims: Our goal is to analyse the detailed behaviour present in the light curve and interpret it in terms of excited-mode frequencies. Methods: After describing the noise

We present the first radial velocity curve of the companion star to BW Cir that demonstrates the presence of a black hole in this X-ray transient that recorded outbursts in 1987 and 1997 (and possibly 1971-1972). We identify weak absorption features corresponding to a G0-5 III donor star, strongly veiled by a residual accretion disk that

Time series of high-resolution images of the complex ac-tive region NOAA 10786 are studied. The observations were performed in G-band (430.5 nm) and in the nearby continuum (463.3 nm), on July 9, 2005 at the Swedish 1-meter Solar Telecope (SST) in La Palma. Granular proper motions in the surroundings of the sunspots have been quantified. A large

We define blue E/S0 galaxies as objects having a clear early-type morphology on the HST/ACS images but with a blue rest-frame color. We isolate this way 210 IAB 22 blue early-type galaxies with M* / Msun > 1010 in the COSMOS field located in three redshift bins (0.2 z 0.55, 0.55 z 0.8, 0.8 z 1.4) and study their properties (number density

We present an analysis of the surface brightness profiles of a sample of 435 late type galaxies with redshift extending up to z˜1. We have used imaging data from GOODS-South HST/ACS tep{Giavalisco04}. We have classified the profiles, obtained at a constant rest-frame wavelength (˜ B band), noting the existence and type of `breaks' in them. In the

Time series of images of a sunspot, acquired simultaneously in blue light and in G-band at the SVST, La Palma, are used to study horizontal motions of granules in the vicinity of the spot and evolution of penumbral grains (PGs) near the outer penumbral border. Local correlation tracking and feature tracking algorithms have been utilized for this