Detailed line profiles from the nebular gas surrounding the radio galaxy 3C 227 are presented. High-resolution spectroscopy around [O iii] 4959- and 5007-A emission lines, with an unprecedentedly high signal-to-noise ratio, reveals broad and asymmetric line profiles all across the nebulae. The average width of the line complex is of the order of

The relative bar torques for 45 galaxies observed at K-band with the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope are determined by transforming the light distributions into potentials and deriving the maximum ratios of the tangential forces relative to the radial forces. The results are combined with the bar torques for 30 other galaxies determined from our

Multiwavelengthp observations of a GRB detected by INTEGRAL (GRB 030227) revealed a dim optical afterglow (OA) that would not have been detected by many previous searches due to its faintess (R~ 23). This OA was seen to decline following a power law decay with index α = -0.95 +/- 0.16. The spectral index β of the OA yields -1.32 +/- 0.15, with the

The GREGOR Fabry-Pérot Interferometer (GFPI) is one of three first-light instruments of the German 1.5-meter GREGOR solar telescope at the Observatorio del Teide, Tenerife, Spain. The GFPI allows fast narrow-band imaging and post-factum image restoration. The retrieved physical parameters will be a fundamental building block for understanding the

One of the most promising explanations for the origin of the billion solar mass black holes (BHs) inferred to power quasars at redshifts z >= 6 is that supermassive stars (SMSs) with masses >=104Msolar collapse to form the seed BHs from which they grow. Here we review recent theoretical advances which provide support for this scenario. Firstly

Context. Transiting planets offer an excellent opportunity for characterizing the atmospheres of extrasolar planets under very different conditions from those found in our solar system. Aims: We are currently carrying out a ground-based survey to obtain the transmission spectra of several extrasolar planets using the 10 m Gran Telescopio Canarias