We present the results and future prospects of an extensive study of the spatial distribution of stars, dust and gas in nearby galaxies, aimed at understanding the assembly, evolution and interplay of these components of spiral disks. As a first step we have derived the radial distribution of dust properties (attenuation, PAH abundance, dust-to-gas

The Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) Survey obtained ≈240,000 moderate-resolution (R ~ 1800) spectra from 3900 Å to 9000 Å of fainter Milky Way stars (14.0 g 20.3) of a wide variety of spectral types, both main-sequence and evolved objects, with the goal of studying the kinematics and populations of our Galaxy

TeV observations of Supernova remnants (SNRs) and, in particular, of SNRs which appear to be physically related to EGRET sources are a prime target for the MAGIC telescope. MAGIC's spatial resolution and sensitivity can probe the main mechanism responsible for producing high energy photons in the SNR neighbourhood. Based on a recent systematical

Following the detection of renewed activity in H1743-322 with Swift/BAT (Krimm et al., ATEL #2058), we triggered radio observations of the source using the VLA. Observations were taken on 2009 May 27 (0855-0915 UT) at 8.4 GHz, with the array in its CnB configuration. The source was detected at a level of 2.24 +/- 0.05 mJy. The uncertainty on the

Progress in the understanding of very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs has developed at a fast pace in the last decade. Several pieces of evidence indicate that these very low-mass objects form in a manner similar to stars, and hence it appears natural to that they could host planetary systems. We are carrying out studies of the binary properties of

We present results of deep echelle spectrophotometry of the brightest knot of the Herbig-Haro object HH 202 in the Orion Nebula - HH 202-S - using the Ultraviolet Visual Echelle Spectrograph in the spectral range from 3100 to 10400 Å. The high spectral resolution of the observations has permitted to separate the component associated with the