We present accurate new ultraviolet and optical BVI photometry for the Galactic globular cluster NGC 2808 based on both ground-based and archival Hubble Space telescope imagery. From this we have selected a sample of ~2000 Horizontal Branch (HB) stars; given the extensive wavelength range considered and the combination of both high angular

After three years since the beginning of operation, the MAGIC telescope could observe several GRB events in the prompt and early afterglow phase. Thanks to its innovative design, the telescope could promptly react to incoming GCN alerts and rapidly slew to the burst coordinates within a typical delay of 50 seconds, performing observations with an

Ongoing and future optical and near-infrared surveys focused on the study of the Galactic plane are briefly presented. Their potential is illustrated by the first results from IPHAS, the INT Photometric Hα Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane.

The ALHAMBRA survey aims to cover 4 deg2 using a system of 20 contiguous, equal width, medium-band filters spanning the range 3500 Å-9700 Å plus the standard JHKs filters. Here we analyze deep near-IR number counts of one of our fields (ALH08) for which we have a relatively large area (0.5 deg2) and faint photometry (J = 22.4, H = 21.3, and K = 20

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Making use of public spectra from Cimatti et al., we measure for the first time the velocity dispersion of spheroid-like massive (M sstarf ~ 1011 M sun) galaxies at z ~ 1.6. By comparing with galaxies of similar stellar mass at lower redshifts, we find evidence for a mild evolution in velocity dispersion, decreasing from ~240 km s-1 at z ~ 1.6 down