Star-forming regions that are visible at 3.6 μm and Hα but not in the u, g, r, i, z bands of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey are measured in five nearby spiral galaxies to find extinctions averaging ~3.8 mag and stellar masses averaging ~5 × 104 M ☉. These regions are apparently young star complexes embedded in dark filamentary shock fronts connected

SDSS-III's newest release is Data Release 10 (DR10). DR10 contains the first spectra of the APO Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). APOGEE is the first high-resolution (R ~ 22,500), high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N >= 100 per resolution element), H-band (1.51 - 1.70 um) survey of all Galactic stellar populations (bulge, bar, disks, halo) with a

We report and study the outburst of a new transient X-ray binary (XRB) in Terzan 5, the third detected in this globular cluster, Swift J174805.3-244637 or Terzan 5 X-3. We find clear spectral hardening in Swift/XRT data during the outburst rise to the hard state, thanks to our early coverage (starting at LX ~ 4 × 1034 erg s–1) of the outburst. This

High spectral resolution spectroscopy has proved to be very useful for the advancement of chemical abundances studies in photoionized nebulae, such as H II regions and planetary nebulae (PNe). Classical analyses make use of the intensity of bright collisionally excited lines (CELs), which have a strong dependence on the electron temperature and

The SDSS-III APOGEE experiment is obtaining high-resolution near-IR spectra to provide measurements of stellar parameters and chemical abundances for stars in many different regions of the Galaxy. I will discuss initial results on the spatial variations of abundances derived from APOGEE data to date. In particular, I focus on mean metallicities in

Ongoing searches for exoplanetary systems have revealed a wealth of planets with diverse physical properties. Planets even smaller than the Earth have already been detected and the efforts of future missions are aimed at the discovery, and perhaps characterization, of small rocky exoplanets within the habitable zone of their stars. Clearly, what we