We present the results of the analysis of spectra and photometry for more than 14,000 stars which are part of the second public data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We discuss the inferred metallicities and distances, which suggest that the formation of the Galactic thick disk took place over a short period of time.

The Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) Photometric Hα Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS) is a 1800-deg2 CCD survey of the northern Milky Way spanning the latitude range -5° b + 5° and reaching down to r'~= 20 (10σ). Representative observations and an assessment of point-source data from IPHAS, now underway, are presented. The data obtained

Eight low-resolution near-infrared spectra (0.8-2.4 μm) of 32522 Thereus were obtained on 2002 August 28 from 0:30 to 5:30 UT, covering more than half of its rotation period, with the 3.56 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) at El Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM, Canary Islands, Spain). All the spectra are red, probably due to a mantle of

We present observations of a new very low mass field binary, discovered during an infrared imaging survey of 250 DENIS L and very late-M dwarfs. DENIS-J055146.0-443412.2 is an M8.5 + L0 pair, with a physical separation of over 200 AU. This makes it the widest very low mass binary known in the field, by an order of magnitude. Such a system is

We report the first quiescent detection of KV UMa, the optical counterpart of XTEJ1118 + 480, in the near-infrared. The observed magnitudes and colours are consistent with a K7-M0V star, at the distance of 1.4 +/- 0.2 kpc. The light curve shows strong orbital modulation with possible contamination from a superhump detected in the quiescent optical

The double-mode pulsation of GSC 00144-03031 has been detected when searching for COROT targets. A very large dataset composed of 4722 photometric measurements was collected at six observatories in Europe and America. There is no hint of the excitation of additional modes (down to 0.6 mmag) and therefore GSC 00144-03031 seems to be a pure double