We present the results of high-resolution absorption-line spectroscopy of three face-on galaxies, NGC 98, NGC 600, and NGC 1703, with the aim of searching for box/peanut (B/P) shaped bulges. These observations test and confirm, for the first time, the prediction that face-on B/P-shaped bulges can be recognized by two minima in the profile along the

Bars are expected to play an important role in galactic dynamics. Since the rest-frame wavelength of near-infrared images of high redshift galaxies lies in the optical, a reliable comparison of low and high redshift bars requires an understanding of how the properties of a bar depend on the observing wavelength. For this purpose, we compare bar

We present deep color profiles for a sample of 415 disk galaxies within the redshift range 0.1

Collisional excitation of neutral hydrogen atoms can significantly increase the intensity of Balmer lines with respect to pure recombination. If this effect is not taken into account, the abundance analysis of these objects returns biased values, and the bias may be significant if accuracies better than a few percent are required. The most affected

We classify 46 broad band surface-brightness profiles in the visible from a sample of nearby early-type unbarred galaxies imaged at the ING (La Palma) and in the SDSS. A key result is that the fraction of these galaxies showing truncations in their outer disks is relatively small (of order 10%). The largest single category of galaxies show what tet

We examine closely the solar center-to-limb variation of continua and lines and compare observations with predictions from both a three-dimensional (3D) hydrodynamic simulation of the solar surface (provided by M. Asplund and collaborators) and one-dimensional (1D) model atmospheres. Intensities from the 3D time series are derived by means of the