Context. Historically, galaxy bulges were thought to be single-component objects at the center of galaxies. However, this picture is now questioned since different bulge types with different formation paths, namely classical and pseudobulges, have been found coexisting within the same galaxy. Aims: We study the incidence and nature of composite

Kepler ultra-high precision photometry of long and continuous observations provides a unique dataset in which surface rotation and variability can be studied for thousands of stars. Because many of these old field stars also have independently measured asteroseismic ages, measurements of rotation and activity are particularly interesting in the

Aims: We present a polarimetric and spectroscopic study of the persistent ultra-compact X-ray binary 4U 0614+091 aimed at searching for the emission of a relativistic particle jet and at unveiling the orbital period Porb of the system. Methods: We obtained r-band polarimetric observations with the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) equipped with

We present the identification and characterization of the optical counterpart to 2XMM J011942.7+032421, one of the most luminous and distant ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs). The counterpart is located near a star-forming region in a spiral arm of the galaxy NGC 470 with u, g, and r magnitudes of 21.53, 21.69, and 21.71 mag, respectively. The

The N2 index ([N II] λ6584/Hα) is used to determine emission line galaxy metallicities at all redshifts, including high redshift, where galaxies tend to be metal-poor. The initial aim of this work was to improve the calibrations used to infer oxygen abundance from N2 by employing updated low-metallicity galaxy databases. We compare N2 and the

The GJ 436 system contains a transiting planet GJ 436 b which is a hot analogue of Neptune on an eccentric orbit. Recently, two additional transiting sub-Earth planets have been postulated in the literature. We observed three transits of GJ 436 b over the course of three years using two-meter class telescopes, each with a photometric precision