We present very deep spectrophotometry of 14 bright extragalactic H II regions belonging to spiral, irregular, and blue compact galaxies. The data for 13 objects were taken with the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer on the Keck I telescope. We have measured C II recombination lines in 10 of the objects and O II recombination lines in eight of

We present the discovery of two new late-T dwarfs identified in the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Galactic Clusters Survey (GCS) Data Release 2 (DR2). These T dwarfs are nearby old T dwarfs along the line of sight to star-forming regions and open clusters targeted by the UKIDSS GCS. They are found towards the αPer cluster and Orion

It has been recently argued from a theoretical point of view that the interaction of some X-ray binary (XRB) jets with their environment will produce trails of radio emitting plasma as the system moves through the Milky Way. Only months later the first observational evidence for the scenario was likely found: a bow shock shaped nebula was detected

We present the preliminary results of a detailed study of ground-based photometric and spectroscopic observations dedicated to the β Cephei CoRoT main target HD~180642. Besides the non-linear dominant radial mode several low-amplitude modes are detected in both kinds of datasets. Our aim is to derive the wavenumbers (ℓ,m) of these modes, as

Ground-based observations are a strong tool for asteroseismic studies and even in the era of asteroseismic space missions they continue to play an important role. I will report on the activities of the CoRoT/SWG Ground-Based Observations Working Group, discuss the observational efforts of the Open Cluster campaigns and the search for the origin of

Aims: To explore the impact of surface inhomogeneities on stellar spectra, granulation models need to be computed. Ideally, the most fundamental characteristics of these models should be carefully tested before applying them to the study of more practical matters, such as the derivation of photospheric abundances. Our goal is to analyze the