The atmospheres of exoplanets are commonly studied by observing the transit of the planet passing in front of its parent star. The obscuration of part of the stellar disk during a transit will reveal aspects of its surface structure resulting from general centre-to-limb variations (CLVs). These become apparent when forming the ratio between the

We analyze the stellar kinematics of 39 dwarf early-type galaxies (dEs) in the Virgo Cluster. Based on the specific stellar angular momentum λRe and the ellipticity, we find 11 slow rotators and 28 fast rotators. The fast rotators in the outer parts of the Virgo Cluster rotate significantly faster than fast rotators in the inner parts of the

We have observed 12 interacting galaxies using the Fabry-Perot interferometer GHαFaS (Galaxy Hα Fabry-Perot system) on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope (La Palma). We have extracted the physical properties (sizes, Hα luminosity and velocity dispersion) of 236 HII regions for the full sample of interacting galaxies. We have derived the physical

The light curves of 2768 stars with effective temperatures and surface gravities placing them near the gamma Doradus (γ Dor)/delta Scuti (δ Sct) instability region were observed as part of the Kepler Guest Observer program from Cycles 1 through 5. The light curves were analyzed in a uniform manner to search for γ Dor, δ Sct, and hybrid star

The hypothesis of a universal initial mass function (IMF) - motivated by observations in nearby stellar systems - has been recently challenged by the discovery of a systematic variation of the IMF with the central velocity dispersion, σ, of early-type galaxies (ETGs), towards an excess of low-mass stars in high-σ galaxies. This trend has been

We provide a complete characterization of the astrophysical properties of the σ Ori Aa, Ab, B hierarchical triple system and an improved set of orbital parameters for the highly eccentric σ Ori Aa, Ab spectroscopic binary. We compiled a spectroscopic data set comprising 90 high-resolution spectra covering a total time span of 1963 days. We applied