The Instrumentation Division of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is involved since several years in upgrading its capacities to design and manufacture optical components. To this end, we have created a new laboratory (Centre for Advanced Optical Systems, CSOA) which will be capable to design, fabricate and qualify large optical

The first (Population III) stars formed only out of H and He and were likely more massive than present-day stars. Massive Population III stars in the range 140–260 M ⊙ are predicted to end their lives as pair-instability supernovae (PISNe), enriching the environment with a unique abundance pattern, with high ratios of odd to even elements. Recently

We derive the ultraviolet (UV) luminosity function (LF) of star-forming galaxies in the redshift range z = 0.6-1.2, in the rest-frame far-UV (1500 Å) wavelength. For this work, we are in particular interested in the bright end of the UV LF in this redshift range. Data from the XMM-Newton Optical Monitor (XMM-OM), near-UV (2410-3565 Å) observations

Near-infrared long-slit spectroscopy has been used to study the stellar population (SP) of the low luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and matched analogues (LLAMA) sample. To perform the SP fits we have employed the X-shooter simple stellar population models together with the STARLIGHT code. Our main conclusions are: The star formation

TOI-1518b, a hot Jupiter around a late A-type star, is one of the few planetary systems that transit the edge of the stellar surface (the impact parameter b ~ 0.9) among hot Jupiters around hot stars (Cabot et al. 2021, AJ, 162, 218). The high rotation speed of the host star (~85 km s -1) and the nearly polar orbit of the planet (~120 ○) may cause

The hydrogen and water molecules respond very differently to the collisional-radiative processes taking place in planetary atmospheres. Naturally, the question arises whether H 2O-rich atmospheres are more (or less) resilient to long-term mass loss than H 2-dominated ones if they radiate away the incident stellar energy more (or less) efficiently