This work investigates the cause and effects of extreme changes in synoptic-scale cloud cover operating at daily timescales using a variety of satellite-based and reanalysis data sets. It is found that the largest sudden increases detected in globally averaged cloud cover over the last ten years of satellite-based observations occur following

Models of thermonuclear burning on accreting neutron stars predict different ignition regimes, depending mainly on the mass accretion rate per unit area. For more than three decades, testing these regimes observationally has met with only partial success. I will present recent results from the Fermi-GBM all-sky X-ray burst monitor, which is

We present the Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (SERVS), an 18 deg2 medium-deep survey at 3.6 and 4.5 μm with the postcryogenic Spitzer Space Telescope to ≈2 mJy (AB=23.1) depth of five highly observed astronomical fields (ELAIS-N1, ELAIS-S1, Lockman Hole, Chandra Deep Field South, and XMM-LSS). SERVS is designed to enable the

The inner structure of AGNs is expected to change below a certain luminosity limit. The big blue bump, footprint of the accretion disk, is absent for the majority of low-luminosity AGNs (LLAGNs). Moreover, recent simulations suggest that the torus, a keystone in the Unified Model, vanishes for nuclei with Lbol lesssim 1042 erg s-1 . However, the

We report on a rapid fading of GX 339-4 to its lowest ever observed X-ray flux level. In response to the recent report of the start of an outburst of GX 339-4 (ATel #4162), we submitted a Swift TOO to check its X-ray flux. The observations were performed on July 8, 2012, from 14:00:59 to 15:53:55 UT. The live on-source exposure time of the

We have obtained high-resolution mid-infrared (MIR) imaging, nuclear spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and archival Spitzer spectra for 22 low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGN; Lbol 5 × 1042 erg s-1). Infrared (IR) observations may advance our understanding of the accretion ows in LLAGN, the fate of the obscuring torus at low accretion