We present radial and rotation (v sin i) velocity measurements from UVES+VLT high resolution spectra of 61 stars in the blue horizontal branches (HB) of the Galactic globular clusters NGC 1904 (M 79), NGC 2808, NGC 6093 (M 80) and NGC 7078 (M 15). The data reduction and the velocity determination, based on cross-correlation techniques, are

We present a search for rings or arcs in the haloes of planetary nebulae (PNe). We discovered such structures in eight PNe, tripling the sample of PNe with known rings. This shows that, contrary to what was believed to date, the occurrence of mass loss fluctuations with timescales of 102-103 yrs at the end of the asymptotic giant branch phase (AGB)

Spectroscopy and deep imaging of the group NEQ3 are presented. This system is formed by three compact objects with relative separations of ~2.6" and ~2.8" and a lenticular galaxy at ~17" from the geometric center of the group. A diffuse filament is located on a line joining the three compact objects and the main galaxy. Analysis of these

OSIRIS is a Day One instrument that will be available at the 10m GTC telescope which is being built at La Palma observatory in the Canary Islands. This optical instrument is designed to obtain wide-field narrow-band images using tunable filters and to do low-resolution spectroscopy in both long-slit and multislit modes. For the multislit

The solar photospheric oxygen abundance has been determined from [O I], O I, OH vibration-rotation and OH pure rotation lines by means of a realistic time-dependent, 3D, hydrodynamical model of the solar atmosphere. In the case of the O I lines, 3D non-LTE calculations have been performed, revealing significant departures from LTE as a result of

The INTEGRAL/EINSTEIN/ROSAT/NVSS objects IGR J17418-12122, 2E 1739.1-1210, 1RXS J174155.3-121157 and NVSS J174155-121201 have recently been suggested to be the same and considered to be a microquasar candidate with likely counterparts at optical and IR wavelengths (Tsarevsky et al. 2004, ATEL #239; Bassani et al. 2004, ATEL #232). In order to