Context. Sunspots are the longest-known manifestation of solar activity, and their magnetic nature has been known for more than a century. Despite this, the boundary between umbrae and penumbrae, the two fundamental sunspot regions, has hitherto been solely defined by an intensity threshold. Aim. Here, we aim at studying the magnetic nature of

We present 5 yr of optical and infrared data of the black hole candidate MAXI J1659-152 covering its 2010 outburst, decay, and quiescence. Combining optical data taken during the outburst decay, we obtain an orbital period of 2.414 ± 0.005 h, in perfect agreement with the value previously measured from X-ray dips. In addition, we detect a clear H α

Determination of the lithium depletion boundary (LDB), i.e., the observational limit below which the cores of very low-mass objects do not reach high enough temperatures for Li destruction, has been used to obtain ages for several open clusters and stellar associations younger than 200 Myr—which until now has been considered the practical upper

Observations and simulations show that outflows in active galactic nuclei contain gas in different phases. To understand their true impact on galaxy evolution, we advocate consistent and unbiased investigation of these multiphase winds in large active galactic nuclei samples.

With its bright and wide equatorial waist seen almost edge-on (`the butterfly body') and the faint and broad bipolar extensions (`the butterfly wings'), NGC 650-1 is the archetypical example of bipolar planetary nebula (PN) with butterfly morphology. We present here deep high-resolution broad- and narrow-band optical images that expose the rich and

The ESO Diffuse Interstellar Band Large Exploration Survey (EDIBLES) is a Large Programme that is collecting high-signal-to-noise (S/N) spectra with UVES of a large sample of O and B-type stars covering a large spectral range. The goal of the programme is to extract a unique sample of high-quality interstellar spectra from these data, representing