The emission from the relativistic jets in blazars usually outshines their host galaxies, challenging the determination of their distances and the characterization of the stellar population. The situation becomes more favourable in the case of the extreme blazars (EHBLs), for which the bulk of the emission of the relativistic jets is emitted at

We use the Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis models to test the recent suggestion that red supergiants can provide an accurate age estimate of a coeval stellar population that is unaffected by interacting binary stars. Ages are estimated by using both the minimum luminosity of red supergiants and the mean luminosity of red supergiants in a

We present an analysis of {VI} CCD time-series photometry of globular cluster NGC 6712. Our main goal is to study the variable star population as indicators of the cluster mean physical parameters. We employed the Fourier decomposition of RR Lyrae light curves to confirm that {}[Fe/H]_{UVES} = -1.0 ± 0.05 is a solid estimate. We estimated the

In three-dimensional (3D) radiative transfer (RT) problems, the tensor product quadratures are generally not optimal in terms of the number of discrete ray directions needed for a given accuracy of the angular integration of the radiation field. In this paper, we derive a new set of angular quadrature rules that are more suitable for solving 3D RT

Context. HD 209458 b is an exoplanet with an upper atmosphere undergoing blow-off escape that has mainly been studied using measurements of the Lyα absorption. Recently, high-resolution measurements of absorption in the He I triplet line at 10 830 Å of several exoplanets (including HD 209458 b) have been reported, creating a new opportunity to