We present measurements of the atmospheric water vapour content above the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) obtained using the Global Positioning System (GPS). The GPS measurements have been evaluated by comparison with 940-nm radiometer observations. A statistical analysis of the GPS measurements points to the ORM as an observing site with

The back-reaction of baryons on the dark matter halo density profile is of great interest, not least because it is an important systematic uncertainty when attempting to detect the dark matter. Here, we draw on a large suite of high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to systematically investigate this process and its dependence on

Context. The image degradation produced by atmospheric turbulence and optical aberrations is usually alleviated using post-facto image reconstruction techniques, even when observing with adaptive optics systems. Aims: These techniques rely on the development of the wavefront using Zernike functions and the non-linear optimization of a certain

In this paper, we present an original observational approach, which combines, for the first time, traditional speckle imaging with image post-processing to obtain in the optical domain diffraction-limited images with high contrast (10-5) within 0.5 to 2 arcseconds around a bright star. The post-processing step is based on wavelet filtering an has

We present Herschel-SPIRE observations of the perturbed galaxy NGC 4438 in the Virgo cluster. These images reveal the presence of extra-planar dust up to ~4-5 kpc away from the galaxy's disk. The dust closely follows the distribution of the stripped atomic and molecular hydrogen, supporting the idea that gas and dust are perturbed in a similar

We use Herschel PACS and SPIRE observations of the edge-on spiral galaxy UGC 4754, taken as part of the H-ATLAS SDP observations, to investigate the dust energy balance in this galaxy. We build detailed SKIRT radiative models based on SDSS and UKIDSS maps and use these models to predict the far-infrared emission. We find that our radiative transfer