We present a scientific case approached through high quality 3D NIR spectroscopy performed with CIRPASS, attached to the Gemini South telescope. A binary mass concentration at the nucleus of the galaxy M 83 was suggested by Thatte et al. [A&A 364 (2000) L47] and Mast et al. [BAAA 45 (2002) 98. Astroph#0505264] determined the possible position of

We report the results from an homogeneous analysis of the X-ray (ACIS-S/Chandra) data available for a sample of 52 LINER galaxies. The X-ray morphology has been classified attending to their nuclear compactness in the hard band (4.5-8.0 keV), into 2 categories: AGN-like nuclei (with a clearly identified unresolved nuclear source) and Starburst-like

The development of fast numerical methods for multilevel radiative transfer (RT) applications often leads to important breakthroughs in astrophysics, because they allow the investigation of problems that could not be properly tackled using the methods previously available. Probably, the most familiar example is the so-called Multilevel Accelerated

Optical studies of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULX) in nearby galaxies have turned out to be instrumental in discriminating between various models including the much advertised intermediate mass black hole hypothesis and various beaming scenarios. Here we report on ESO VLT and SUBARU observations of ULX that have revealed the parent stellar

We present the WeCAPP catalogue of variable stars found in the bulge of M31 citep{wecapp05}. Observations in the WeCAPP microlensing survey (optical R and I bands) for a period of three years (2000-2003) resulted in a database with an excellent time coverage. We detected 23781 variable sources in a 16.1arcmin × 16.6arcmin field centered on the

We present optical observations of an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in Holmberg IX, a dwarf galaxy near M81. The ULX has an average X-ray luminosity of some 1040 erg/s. It is located in a huge (400pc × 300pc) ionized nebula being much larger than normal supernova remnants. From the observed emission lines (widths and ratios) we find that the