The deepest ground-based optical surveys (in terms of surface brightness mu~31 mag/arcsec^2) show that we are close to the dreaded source confusion limit. The typical distance between sources in these images is a few arcseconds, on the order of the natural seeing in these images. When this source confusion limit is reached, low surface brightness

LIGHTS is an ultra-deep imaging survey that is 10 years ahead of the science to be done with the Vera Rubin Observatory. In this talk, I will update the current status of the survey with more than 25 nearby galaxies already observed with the LBT telescope in Arizona up to surface brightness ~31 mag/arcsec^2 in g and r bands. I will also discuss the

The derivation of precise stellar ages is considered the current major challenge to reconstruct the chronological chain of events that shaped the Milky Way (MW). Despite much effort and hope have been deposited in upcoming asteroseismology works, we have shown that CMD-fitting already offers an alternative to age determinations via the derivation