We use X-ray observations of quasar microlensing (sensitive to smaller compact objects than in the optical) to study the possible presence of a population of low mass black holes (BHs; from ~10-3 M ⊙ to 10-1 M ⊙) in lens galaxies. We compare these observations with microlensing magnification simulations of a mixed population of stars and BHs plus a

We present 0.4 arcsec-resolution mid-IR imaging polarimetry, obtained with CanariCam at GTC, of the central 0.11 pc x 0.28 pc (4.2 arcsec x 10.8 arcsec) region of W51 IRS2. The observed mid-IR polarization across this region is typically several percent, with values as high as 12%. The polarization arises from ensembles of non-spherical silicate

Big Datasets are becoming more and more prominent in the field of astrophysics with new powerful telescopes and surveys capturing parts of our night sky in an almost continuous fashion. Consequently, unsupervised Machine Learning is key to getting first insight into this abundance of data. We present our results on the performance of unsupervised

We present the results of photometric and spectroscopic monitoring campaigns of the changing look AGN NGC 2617 carried out from 2016 until 2022 and covering the wavelength range from the X-ray to the near-IR. The facilities included the telescopes of the SAI MSU, MASTER Global Robotic Net, the 2.3-m WIRO telescope, Swift, and others. We found

We present a new spectroscopic study of 175 stars in the vicinity of the dwarf galaxy Hercules (d ~ 132 kpc) with data from the Anglo-Australian Telescope and its AAOmega spectrograph together with the Two Degree Field multi-object system to solve the conundrum that whether Hercules is tidally disrupting. We combine broad-band photometry, proper

Using MUSE data, we investigate the radial gradients of stellar population properties (namely age, [M/H], and the abundance ratio of α elements [α/Fe]) for a sample of nine dwarf early-type (dE) galaxies with log(M⋆/M⊙) ~ 9.0 and an infall time onto the Virgo cluster of 2-3 Gyr ago. We followed a similar approach as in Bidaran et al. to derive