This paper presents the results of a detailed theoretical investigation of the iron line formation NLTE problem in a three-dimensional model of the solar photosphere, which we have obtained from a very recent radiation hydrodynamics simulation of solar surface convection. In this first paper we have neglected the effects of horizontal radiative

A combination of two penumbral models similar to those used by Martínez Pillet (2000) is presented. One matches the observed rms fluctuations perfectly while the other reproduces the observed Net Circular Polarization. No factor three mismatch exists in this case. The rationale of using two different, but strongly coupled, models is explained.

The conservation of magnetic flux demands a magnetic field fine structure as small as 15 km to explain the net circular polarization observed in penumbrae (Sánchez Almeida cite{san98a}). A recent work by Martínez Pillet (cite{mar00}) claims that modeling penumbrae as a collection of fluxtubes 100 km wide suffices. We identify several shortcomings

From optical R-band data of the double quasar QSO 0957+561A,B, we made two new difference light curves (with an overlap of about 330d between the time-shifted light curve for the A image and the magnitude-shifted light curve for the B image). We observed noisy behaviours around the zero line and no short time-scale events (with a duration of months

In this paper, we present our preliminary results on Seyfert galaxies with circumnuclear/nuclear starburst (SB) activity. We have searched the recent available literature and found 76 active galaxies with clear evidence of nuclear SB activity, among which 16 are Seyfert 1s, 51 Seyfert 2s, and 9 LINERs. After studying the 51 Seyfert 2s, we find that

Multicolor photometric observations of a planetary transit in the system HD 209458 are analyzed. The observations, made in the Strömgren photometric system, allowed a recalculation of the basic physical properties of the star-planet system. This includes derivation of linear limb-darkening values of HD 209458, which is the first time that a limb