The evolution of small systems such as dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) is likely to have been a balance between external environmental effects and internal processes within their own relatively shallow potential wells. Assessing how strong such environmental interactions may have been is therefore an important element in understanding the

We report on the first 180 days of Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer observations of the outburst of the black hole candidate IGR J17091-3624. This source exhibits a broad variety of complex light curve patterns including periods of strong flares alternating with quiet intervals. Similar patterns in the X-ray light curves have been seen in the (up to now

We discuss the first results of the Fermi-GBM all-sky search for X-ray bursts. The very large field of view and X-ray response of the Fermi-GBM make it a unique instrument to study rare, bright and short-lived X-ray bursts. We are performing a systematic search that exploits such capabilities. We present results on long/intermediate type I X-ray

We present the first APOKASC catalog of spectroscopic and asteroseismic data for dwarfs and subgiants. Asteroseismic data for our sample of 415 objects have been obtained by the Kepler mission in short (58.5 s) cadence, and light curves span from 30 up to more than 1000 days. The spectroscopic parameters are based on spectra taken as part of the

We report the first extrasolar planet, ET1, detected with a new generation Doppler instrument, called Exoplanet Tracker. This planet has a minimum mass of 0.41 Jupiter masses and orbits a V = 8.1 K0V star with a 4.8 day period. The planet was identified using the KPNO Coude Feed 0.9 meter telescope in spring 2005. This is the first time an

We report the discovery of WTS-1b, the first extrasolar planet found by the WFCAM Transit Survey, which began observations at the 3.8-m United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in 2007 August. Light curves comprising almost 1200 epochs with a photometric precision of better than 1 per cent to J ˜ 16 were constructed for ˜60 000 stars and searched