With a mass of 7.4 Earth masses and radius of 1.6 Earth radii, CoRoT-7b is among the smallest transiting planets found to date. Due to its small size, the transit signal is very shallow, which makes the estimation of the planetary parameters from the light curve challenging. We carry out a Bayesian analysis of the CoRoT-7b lightcurve using a

We present high speed optical photometric observations made using the NTT and ULTRACAM of the optical counterpart of 3XMMJ051034.6-670353, which was recently identified as an X-ray source showing a modulation on a period of 23.6 min. Although the optical counterpart is faint (g = 21.4), we find that the u'g'r' light curves show a periodic

Aims: Using the CoRoT space based photometry of the O-type binary HD 46149, stellar atmospheric effects related to rotation can be separated from pulsations, because they leave distinct signatures in the light curve. This offers the possibility of characterising and exploiting any pulsations seismologically. Methods: Combining high-quality space

Planets forming around close binary systems should form in the binary orbital plane (varying precession periods of protoplanetary material should provide strong collisional damping; Schneider and Doyle 1995). Planets around eclipsing binaries may then be expected to have formed in the binary orbital plane and thus to be detected by their transits

Aims: The very high energy (VHE ≳100 GeV) γ-ray MAGIC observations of the blazar S4 0954+65, were triggered by an exceptionally high flux state of emission in the optical. This blazar has a disputed redshift of z = 0.368 or z ≥ 0.45 and an uncertain classification among blazar subclasses. The exceptional source state described here makes for an

We present near-infrared colour-magnitude diagrams and star counts for a number of regions along the Galactic plane. It is shown that along the l=27°, b=0° line of sight there is a feature at 5.7+/-0.7kpc with a density of stars at least a factor of 2 and probably more than a factor of 5 times that of the disc at the same position. This feature