The GLAS (Ground-layer Laser Adaptive-optics System) project is to construct a common-user Rayleigh laser beacon that will work in conjunction with the existing NAOMI adaptive optics system, instruments (near IR imager INGRID, optical integral field spectrograph OASIS, coronagraph OSCA) and infrastructure at the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope

Elmer is an imager and spectrograph in the visible range that has been designed and managed within the GTC Project Office. Elmer will be installed at the telescope at the beginning of the commissioning phase. The observing modes of the instrument are: Imaging, Long Slit, Mask and Slit-less multi-object Spectroscopy, Fast Photometry and Fast short

Bellazzini et al. claim that López-Corredoira et al. warp model is totally unable to reproduce the Canis Major structure in the red clump stars. However, slight variations in the azimuth of the López-Corredoira et al. warp model, justified by the uncertainties in the parameter as well as the local irregularities with respect to the average model

FRIDA (inFRared Imager and Dissector for the Adaptive optics system of the Gran Telescopio Canarias) has been designed as a diffraction limited instrument that will offer broad and narrow band imaging and integral field spectroscopy (IFS) capabilities with low, intermediate and high spectral resolutions to operate in the wavelength range 0.9 - 2.5

A new method for improving the resolution of images is presented. It is based on Occam's razor principle implemented using algorithmic complexity arguments. The performance of the method is illustrated using artificial and real test data.

Two teams of scientists and engineers at Max Planck Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik and at the European Southern Observatory have joined forces to design, build and install the Laser Guide Star Facility for the VLT. The Laser Guide Star Facility has now been completed and installed on the VLT Yepun telescope at Cerro Paranal. In this paper