The 10m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) is currently being installed in the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM) on the island of La Palma. An adaptive optics (AO) system will be installed at one of the Nasmyth foci of the telescope within a year of the telescope being commissioned. The preliminary design of the adaptive optics system is

This investigation aims to study the correlation of the solar background with atmosphere. We used high resolution observations of the NaDl spectral line. In fact the large span in formation heights of this spectral line allowed us to infer the signal from photosphere to chromosphere. We analyzed the data by applying the SIR code (Stokes Inversion

Primitive asteroids contain the most pristine material that gave birth to the rocky planets. Interest in spectral data from primitive asteroids that could be the source of the primitive near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) has increased in anticipation of the two sample-return missions that will reach their targets in the next four years and bring samples

We present a detailed study of the faint Milky Way satellite Draco II (Dra II) from deep CFHT/MegaCam broad-band g and i photometry and narrow-band metallicity-sensitive CaHK observations, along with follow-up Keck II/DEIMOS multi-object spectroscopy. Forward modelling of the deep photometry allows us to refine the structural and photometric

We develop a method for computing the probability densities of spherical voids in distribution of galaxies on a large scale. This method is applied to Poissonian cluster models. We consider CDM biased and non-biased models; the appropriate approximation has been used in each case. We find that, in the latter case, the probability finding a void

Context. We present a spectral analysis of the binary G 224-58 AB, which consists of the coolest M extreme subdwarf (esdM5.5) and a brighter primary (esdK5). This binary may serve as a benchmark for metallicity measurement calibrations and as a test bed for atmospheric and evolutionary models for esdM objects. Aims: We perform the analysis of