Recent work (Corradi et al. 2015; Jones et al. 2016) has shown that the phenomenon of extreme abundance discrepancies, where recombination line abundances exceed collisionally excited line abundances by factors of 10 or more, seem to be strongly associated with planetary nebulae with close binary central stars. To further investigate, we have

To optimise the science results of the asteroseismic part of the CoRoT satellite mission a complementary simultaneous ground-based observational campaign is organised for selected CoRoT targets. The observations include both high-resolution spectroscopic and multicolour photometric data. We present the preliminary results of the analysis of the

We present a rigorous approach to the problem of the random clustering of points in one-dimensional Poissonian distributions. Exact expressions for the probability density of clusters are derived, and the statistical properties of the inner configuration of their associated structures are studied in detail. We review previous works in the field

Maps in the CO (J = 2-1) line of the southern H II region complexes Carina Nebula and G333.6-0.2/RCW 106 are presented and discussed. Results for the Carina Nebula indicate a complicated spatial structure; an extended molecular cloud appears to be wrapped partly around the brightest parts of the H II region (Car I and Car II). The situation in

Accretion onto a supermassive black hole (BH) is the most viable explanation for the huge emitted luminosity in active galaxies. Nowadays a wealth of observations have shown the presence of a BH in many nearby inactive bulges, suggesting that all massive spheroids harbor a BH. Moreover, at low redshift, fundamental correlations have been found

Accretion onto a black hole (BH) is the most viable explanation for the huge emitted power in active galaxies. A wealth of observations have shown the presence of a BH in many nearby inactive bulges, suggesting that all massive spheroids harbor a BH. At low redshift, fundamental correlations have been found between the BH mass and the luminosity