Context: Luminous blue compact galaxies, common at z ~ 1 but now relatively rare, show disturbed kinematics in emission lines. Aims: As part of a programme to understand their formation and evolution, we have investigated the stellar dynamics of a number of nearby objects in this class. Methods: We obtained long-slit spectra with VLT/FORS2 in the

We present observations of the nearby barred starburst galaxy M83 (NGC 5236), with the new Fabry-Perot interferometer GHαFaS mounted on the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope on La Palma. The unprecedented high-resolution observations, of 16 pc FWHM-1, of the Hα-emitting gas cover the central 2 kpc of the galaxy. The velocity field displays the

We report on high angular resolution, high-precision spectropolarimetric measurements of a decaying sunspot. The spot gradually lost its penumbra during the course of 3 days. In the late stages of evolution, where the only remnant of the spot is a naked umbra, we find small-scale inhomogeneities in the magnetic canopy surrounding it. The

We present the results of long-slit spectroscopy, in several positions, of the Orion Nebula. Our goal is to study the spatial distributions of a large number of nebular quantities, including line fluxes, physical conditions, and ionic abundances, at a spatial resolution of about 1". In particular, we have compared the O++ abundance determined from

We present a rapid timing analysis of VLT (optical) and RXTE data of the Galactic black hole GX 339-4 in the low/hard state in June 2007, soon after emerging from outburst. Both optical and X-ray power density spectra are qualitatively similar with QPO-like feature or a break around 0.05-0.1 Hz. A cross-correlation function (CCF) analysis finds no

There are several hundred thousand R = 2000 stellar spectra reported in the final public release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I) and the continuing project SEGUE (Sloan Extension for Galactic Exploration and Understanding), which has completed roughly half of its scheduled set of observations to date. The stars in this sample were targeted