We present a stellar population analysis of the absorption line strength maps for 48 early-type galaxies from the SAURON sample. Using the line strength index maps of Hβ, Fe5015 and Mgb, measured in the Lick/IDS system and spatially binned to a constant signal-to-noise ratio, together with predictions from up-to-date stellar population models, we

The aim of the SAURON collaboration, and the reason for building the instrument, is to study a representative sample of nearby ellipticals, lenticulars and bulges of early-type spirals, in order to measure their intrinsic shapes, velocity and metallicity distributions, and to gain insight into the relation between their stellar and gaseous.

The transiting planet CoRoT-1b is thought to belong to the pM-class of planets, in which the thermal emission dominates in the optical wavelengths. We present a detection of its secondary eclipse in the CoRoT white channel data, whose response function goes from ~400 to ~1000 nm. We used two different filtering approaches, and several methods to

We obtain the probability distribution for the volume of excursion sets in a three-dimensional Gaussian field, in order to develop the approximation to the cosmic mass function that follows directly from the assumption that the spherical collapse criteria may be applied to field points. We also use this distribution to develop an analytical

We present the evolution of the luminosity-size and stellar mass-size relations of luminous (LV>~3.4×1010 h-270 Lsolar) and massive (M*>~3×1010 h-270 Msolar) galaxies in the last ~11 Gyr. We use very deep near-infrared images of the Hubble Deep Field-South and the MS 1054-03 field in the Js, H, and Ks bands from FIRES to retrieve the sizes in the

Genuine spectral energy distributions (SED) of the central few parsec region of the nearest and brightest active galaxies in the southern hemisphere are presented. These are compiled from very high-spatial resolution data taken from radio (VLBA), IR adaptive optics and interferometry, and optical (HST) observations. The new SEDs are characterized