We report on deep radio images and optical spectroscopy of two BL Lac objects that have very close compact companions. The two targets, 1ES 0502+675 and 1ES 1440+122, were selected from the Hubble Space Telescope imaging survey of 110 BL Lacs as candidates for possible gravitational lensing. The new observations clearly demonstrate that the

Context. Galaxies, which often contain ionised gas, sometimes also exhibit a so-called low-ionisation nuclear emission line region (LINER). For 30 years, this was attributed to a central mass-accreting supermassive black hole (more commonly known as active galactic nucleus, AGN) of low luminosity, making LINER galaxies the largest AGN sub

The Antlia dwarf galaxy, recently found to be a possible local Group member, is analyzed using VI photometry. The galaxy is resolved into a large number of stars and although the galaxy is intrinsically faint and of low surface brightness, its stellar populations reveal characteristics more typical of faint star-forming dIrs rather than dEs

Recent data on, and interpretations of the Kleinmann-Low nebula are examined. It is suggested that associated high velocity gas is radiatively accelerated by a protostar in an early stage of premain-sequence contraction.

We present J-H-K' photometry for a sample of 45 high redshift quasars found by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The sample was originally selected on the basis of optical colors and spans a redshift range from 3.6 to 5.03. Our photometry reflects the rest-frame SED longward of Lyalpha for all redshifts. The results show that the near-IR colors of high

We have studied the extreme starburst in the infrared merger NGC 3256. We detect four galactic bubbles (using ESO New Technology Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 Hα images). These shells would be associated with previous supernova explosions. The first analysis of the spatial distribution of young star cluster candidates shows that more