The detailed study of the different structural components of nearby galaxies can supply vital information about the secular, or internal, evolution of these galaxies which they may have undergone since their formation. We highlight a series of new studies on the thick and thin disk components of galaxies, based on the analysis of mid-infrared

We present the first results of the SUMO project, aimed at studying multiple populations in globular clusters. For this purpose we obtained wide-field photometry in a large sample of clusters using both archival and proprietary U, B, V, and I data from ground-based telescopes. We have defined a new photometric index c_U,B,I=(U-B)-(B-I), that we

We derive the bar fraction in three different environments ranging from the field to Virgo and Coma clusters, covering an unprecedentedly large range of galaxy luminosities (or, equivalently, stellar masses). We confirm that the fraction of barred galaxies strongly depends on galaxy luminosity. We also show that the difference between the bar

Taking advantage of ultra-deep imaging of SDSS Stripe82 and the Hubble Ultra Deep Field by HST, we explore the properties of stellar halos at two relevant epochs of cosmic history. At z˜0 we find that the radial surface brightness profiles of disks have a smooth continuation into the stellar halo that starts to affect the surface brightness

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a project to design, build and operate an European Solar 4-meter class telescope to be located in the Canary Islands, with the participation of institutions from fifteen European countries gathered around the consortium EAST (European Association for Solar Telescopes). The project main objective up to the

Using UV images taken with the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, we discovered an anomalous sequence in the color-magnitude diagram of M 2. This feature appears as a narrow poor-populated red giant branch, which extends down to the sub giant branch region. We speculate that this new feature could be the extension of the faint component of the split sub