Context. The large number of stars for which uninterrupted high-precision photometric timeseries data are being collected with Kepler and CoRoT initiated the development of automated methods to analyse the stochastically excited oscillations in main-sequence, subgiant and red-giant stars. Aims: We investigate the differences in results for global

We present an automated morphological classification in 4 types (E, S0, Sab, Scd) of ~700 000 galaxies from the SDSS DR7 spectroscopic sample based on support vector machines. The main new property of the classification is that we associate a probability to each galaxy of being in the four morphological classes instead of assigning a single class

We present two independent methods for studying the global stellar parameter space (mass M, age, chemical composition X0, Z0) of HD 49933 with seismic data. Using a local minimization and an MCMC algorithm, we obtain consistent results for the determination of the stellar properties: M = 1.1-1.2 M&sun; Age ~ 3.0 Gyr, Z0 ~ 0.008. A description of

Context. The second short run (SRa02) of the CoRoT space mission for asteroseismology was partly devoted to stars belonging to the Mon OB2 association. An intense monitoring has been performed on Plaskett's star (HD 47129) and the unprecedented quality of the light curve allows us to shed new light on this very massive, non-eclipsing binary system

Context. The CoRoT satellite has recently discovered a hot Jupiter that transits across the disc of a F9 main-sequence star called CoRoT-6 with a period of 8.886 days. Aims: We model the photospheric activity of the star and use the maps of the active regions to study stellar differential rotation and the star-planet interaction. Methods: We apply

We present period change rates (dP/dt) for 42 RR Lyrae variables in the globular cluster IC 4499. Despite clear evidence of these period increases or decreases, the observed period change rates are an order of magnitude larger than predicted from theoretical models of this cluster. We find that there is a preference for increasing periods, a