Observations show a relation between the brightest young star cluster and the present overall star formation rate of a galaxy. A possible explanation would be the formation of complete cluster populations in rather short formation epochs lasting ≈ 10 Myr. This implies that the star formation history of a galaxy is a sequence of formation epochs, in

Motivated by recent progress in the study of early-type galaxies owing to technological advances, the launch of new space telescopes, and large ground-based surveys, we attempt a short review of our current understanding of the recent star formation activity in such intriguing galactic systems.

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We present the observational properties of the dwarf galaxy population (Mr>M*r+1) corresponding to one of the largest samples of spectroscopically confirmed nearby galaxy cluster members reported in the literature. We have observed that red dwarf galaxies (u-r>2.22) share the same cluster environment as the brightest cluster members (Mr

The helioseismic instruments aboard the SOHO satellite make it possible to measure solar oscillations as variations of the irradiance (VIRGO) or as variations of the photospheric velocity (GOLF). Theoretically, phase differences between different photometric bands are expected to be around 0 degrees over the p-mode frequency range. By using VIRGO

Near-infrared (NIR) and optical polarimetric observations of a selection of X-ray binaries are presented. The targets were observed using the Very Large Telescope and the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope. We detect a significant level (3σ) of linear polarization in four sources. The polarization is found to be intrinsic (at the >3σ level) in two