PHI, Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager, is an instrument for solar observations that will go on board the Solar Orbiter mission (ESA/NASA), to be launched on 2017. This mission will orbit the Sun getting as close as 0.28 AU. It is also an out of the ecliptic mission which will provide a better, more direct observation of high solar latitudes. SO

Spectroscopic and spectropolarimetric observations with high spectral resolution provide extremely rich information on the physical conditions of distant celestial objects; sometimes, even the mere presence of a spectroscopic or polarimetric pattern may offer fundamental insights. But these are photon-starving techniques. Signals are often at the

Massive stars (M ≥ 9 M_{&sun;}) are usually formed in OB associations, consisting of one or more not very massive open clusters and a halo of scattered young stars. The study of these open clusters can provide clues about how stellar formation proceeds from the parent molecular clouds. We present first results on a project to understand sequential

The solar spectrophotometer "Mark-I", located at the Observatorio del Teide and continuously operated for the latest 36, provides a high precision measurement of the radial velocity of the Sun-as-a-star which has enabled the study of the small velocity fluctuations produced by normal modes solar oscillations and the characterization of its spectrum

The detailed study of the different structural components of nearby galaxies can supply vital information about the secular, or internal, evolution of these galaxies which they may have undergone since their formation. We highlight a series of new studies based on the analysis of mid-infrared images of over 2000 local galaxies which we are

Recent studies have argued that galaxy mergers are not important drivers for the evolution of S0's, on the basis that mergers cannot preserve the coupling between the bulge and disk scale-lengths observed in these galaxies and the lack of correlation of their ratio with the S0 Hubble type. We investigate whether the remnants resulting from