Aims: We study the variation in the magnetic field strength and the umbral intensity of sunspots during the declining phase of the solar cycle No. 23 and in the beginning of cycle No. 24. Methods: We analyze a sample of 183 sunspots observed from 1999 until 2011 with the Tenerife Infrared Polarimeter (TIP) at the German Vacuum Tower Telescope (VTT)

We investigate the variable star content of the isolated, Local Group, dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxy Cetus. Multi-epoch, wide-field images collected with the Very Large Telescope/Visible Multiobject Spectrograph camera allowed us to detect 638 variable stars (630 RR Lyrae stars and eight anomalous Cepheids), 475 of which are new detections. We

Ultracool dwarfs with spectral type M7 and later include very low-mass stars as well as brown dwarfs. Due to their intrinsic faintness, only 9 very low-mass dwarfs are actually being monitored by the Kepler mission. We present light curves for some of these dwarfs that show rotational modulation due to cool spots on the surface and flare outbursts

Using Gemini North telescope ultra-deep and high-resolution (sub-kiloparsec) K-band adaptive optics imaging of a sample of four nearby (z ~ 0.15) massive (~1011 M &sun;) compact (R 1.5 kpc) galaxies, we have explored the structural properties of these rare objects with unprecedented detail. Our surface brightness profiles expand over 12 mag in

Aims: We report the discovery of CoRoT-16b, a low density hot jupiter that orbits a faint G5V star (mV = 15.63) in 5.3523 ± 0.0002 days with slight eccentricity. A fit of the data with no a priori assumptions on the orbit leads to an eccentricity of 0.33 ± 0.1. We discuss this value and also derive the mass and radius of the planet. Methods: We

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