Context. Recent metallicity determinations in young open clusters and star-forming regions suggest that the latter may be characterized by a slightly lower metallicity than the Sun and older clusters in the solar vicinity. However, these results are based on small statistics and inhomogeneous analyses. The Gaia-ESO Survey is observing and

Originally thought to explore the high redshift Universe, the extreme depth of the Frontier Fields survey provides also an excellent opportunity to explore with unprecedented detail the faintest component of the galaxy clusters: their intra-cluster light (ICL). In this contribution, we will show our analysis of the ICL of the cluster Abell 2744

The GTC is a 10.4m telescope being built in La Palma, Spain, by a consortium lead by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC). Other members of the collaboration include Mexico and the University of Florida (US). The telescope is now complete, the main activity currently being the installation of the control system. This will lead to the

We present our long-term monitoring, using both ground-based telescopes and the HST, of the expansion in the plane of the sky of the outflows from evolved stars. They include the PN M2-9 (suspected of hosting a symbiotic nucleus), the classical nova remnant GK Per, the symbiotic Miras R Aqr, Hen 2-147 and Hen 2-104, and the proto-PNe CRL 618, CRL

The Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) 10.4m telescope received its First Light on July 13, 2007. At present the GTC is undergoing commissioning tests. Night time observations are being carried out routinely from Monday through to Thursday every week. The GTC will begin science observation by the end of the year, and will be offered to the community in

The GTC azimuth and elevation axes control systems employ large custom direct-drive motors operated by means of embedded fully-digital current loops. A high-performance position loop has been developed based on sinusoidal encoder feedback with interpolation error compensation. Real-time servo feedback and trajectory tracking is implemented by