The Kepler mission will provide a huge amount of asteroseismic data during the next few years, among which hundreds of solar-like stars will be targeted. The amount of stars and their observation length represent a step forward in the comprehension of the stellar evolution that has already been initiated by CoRoT and MOST missions. Up to now, the

Recently the readout of the MAGIC telescopes has been upgraded to a new system based on the Domino Ring Sampler version 4 chip. We present the analysis techniques and the signal extraction performance studies of this system. We study the behavior of the baseline, the noise, the cross-talk, the linearity and the time resolution. We investigate also

Recent focus on the importance of cold, unshocked gas accretion in galaxy formation - not explicitly included in semi-analytic studies - motivates the following detailed comparison between two inherently different modelling techniques: direct hydrodynamical simulation and semi-analytic modelling. By analysing the physical assumptions built into the

The highest resolution images ever taken in the visible were obtained by combining Lucky Imaging and low order adaptive optics. This paper describes a new instrument to be deployed on the WHT 4.2m and GTC 10.4 m telescopes on La Palma, with particular emphasis on the optical design and the expected system performance. A new design of low order

Context. Ground-based imaging and imaging spectropolarimetric data are often subjected to post-facto reconstruction techniques to improve the spatial resolution. Aims: We test the effects of reconstruction techniques on two-dimensional data to determine the best approach to improve our data. Methods: We obtained an 1-h time-series of

In July, the transient neutron star low-mass X-ray binary Aql X-1 was detected in outburst at X-ray, UV, optical and near-infrared wavelengths (ATel #2742, #2744, #2748). On 1st September the X-rays re-brightened (ATel #2850). Here we report on our ongoing optical monitoring campaign (ATel #1218, #1970, #2288) with the Faulkes Telescopes North and