The discovery of very slow pulsations (Pspin =5560 s) has solved the long-standing question of the nature of the compact object in the high-mass X-ray binary 4U 2206+54 but has posed new ones. According to spin evolutionary models in close binary systems, such slow pulsations require a neutron star magnetic field strength larger than the quantum

We investigate the physical state of H I absorbing gas at low redshift (z = 0.25) using a subset of cosmological, hydrodynamic simulations from the OverWhelmingly Large Simulations project, focusing in particular on broad (bH I≥40 km s-1) H I Lyα absorbers (BLAs), which are believed to originate in shock-heated gas in the warm-hot intergalactic

In 2011 Laporte et al. reported a very high redshift galaxy candidate: a lensed J-band dropout (A2667-J1). J1 has a photometric redshift of z= 9.6-12, the probability density function for which permits no low- or intermediate-z solution. We here report new spectroscopic observations of this galaxy with Very Large Telescope/X-Shooter, which show

OSIRIS multi object spectrograph uses a set of user-customised-masks, which are manufactured on-demand. The manufacturing process consists of drilling the specified slits on the mask with the required accuracy. Ensuring that slits are on the right place when observing is of vital importance. We present a tool for checking the quality of the process

Context. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) can provide information about star formation at high redshifts. Even in the absence of a bright optical/near-infrared/radio afterglow, the high detection rate of X-ray afterglows by Swift/XRT and its localization precision of 2-3 arcsec facilitates the identification and the study of GRB host galaxies. Aims: We

Context. Active galactic nuclei (AGN), powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs), are thought to be scaled up versions of Galactic black hole X-ray binaries (BH-XRBs). In the past few years evidence of such correspondence include similarities in the broadband shape of the X-ray variability power spectra, with characteristic bend