We present the results of the analysis of spectra and photometry for more than 14,000 stars which are part of the second public data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We discuss the inferred metallicities and distances, which suggest that the formation of the Galactic thick disk took place over a short period of time.

Using effective temperature and metallicity derived from SDSS spectra for ~60,000 F- and G-type main-sequence stars (0.2

We introduce a new method to measure the dispersion of mmax values of star clusters and show that the observed sample of mmax is inconsistent with random sampling from a universal stellar initial mass function (IMF) at a 99.9 per cent confidence level. The scatter seen in the mmax-Mecl data can be mainly (76 per cent) understood as being the result

We report the discovery of a low-mass (0.26 +/- 0.02, 0.15 +/- 0.01Msolar) pre-main-sequence (PMS) eclipsing binary (EB) with a 5.3d orbital period. JW 380 was detected as part of a high-cadence time-resolved photometric survey (the Monitor project) using the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope and Wide Field Camera for a survey of a single field in the

We present a detailed study of the neutral and ionized gas phases in the galactic wind for the nearby starburst galaxy NGC 5394 based on new integral field spectroscopy obtained with the INTEGRAL fibre system at the William Herschel Telescope. The neutral gas phase in the wind is detected via the interstellar Na I D doublet absorption. After a

The study of asteroids that present sporadic cometary activity, is of fundamental importance to address several astronomical problems like the end states of comet nuclei, the abundance of water in main belt asteroids and its role as a possible source of terrestial water. We studied the composition of the surface of asteroid (3200) Phaethon, a