We present visible and near-IR spectra of the nucleus of comet 162P/Siding Spring (also known as 2004 TU12) obtained in 2004 December, while it had no detectable coma. This is the third object observed to have intermittent cometary activity even when relatively close to the Sun. The spectra show no strong features in this wavelength range. This

Dynamical arguments indicate that 944 Hidalgo is most likely an extinct or dormant comet. Hidalgo's Tisserand invariant (T = 2.07) suggests strongly that this object came either from the Kuiper belt or the Oort cloud (e.g., Weissman et al. 2002). We obtained low-resolution near-infrared spectra in the 0.8-2.4 micron region on UT Oct 22, 23, Nov 19

We present first results obtained from our spectroscopic survey of near-Earth objects (NEOSS), comprising a total of 102 visible and near-infrared spectra of asteroids. Visible data have been recorded with the 2.5-m Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT), while near-infrared spectra have been taken at 3.5-m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, both telescopes

Not Available

Not Available

Dependence of phenomenological properties of Cepheids on the heavy element abundance is studied. It is found that the amplitude of the pulsation depends on the metallicity of the stellar atmosphere.