The main objective of the Penn State/Toruń Centre for Astronomy search for planets around evolved stars is the detection of planetary systems around massive, evolved stars. We are also interested in the evolution of these systems on stellar evolution timescales. In this paper we present our approach to determine the basic physical parameters of our

Aims: We present an analysis of the star formation properties of field galaxies within the local volume out to a recession velocity limit of 3000 km s-1. Methods: A parent sample of 863 star-forming galaxies is used to calculate a B-band luminosity function. This is then populated with star formation information from a subsample of 327 galaxies

In principle, dark galaxies in the dwarf-galaxy mass range may be detectable through additional, small-scale image splitting of quasars that are already known to be multiply-imaged on arcsecond scales. Here, we derive the image separations expected for dark galaxies with density profiles favoured by recent N-body simulations. The results are

We report on the status of the Canarias InfraRed Camera Experiment (CIRCE), a near-infrared visitor instrument for the 10.4 meter Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). Besides functioning as a 1-2.5 micron imager with a 3.4×3.4 arcminute field-of-view and 0.10 arsecond pixels, CIRCE will have the capacity for low and moderate resolution grism

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We present a study of the radial distribution of RR Lyrae variables, which present a range of photometric and pulsational properties, in the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Tucana. We find that the fainter RR Lyrae stars, having a shorter period, are more centrally concentrated than the more luminous, longer period RR Lyrae variables. Through comparison