The Balmer lines of four A Ia-supergiants (spectral type A0 to A3) and fourteen B Ia and Ib-supergiants (spectral type B0 to B3) in the solar neighbourhood are analyzed by means of NLTE unified model atmospheres to determine the properties of their stellar winds, in particular their wind momenta. As in previous work for O-stars (Puls et al. cite

Not Available

The analysis of the X-ray data for a sample of 51 LINER nuclei with available X-ray Chandra imaging is reported. Our aim was to investigate the physical mechanisms which power LINER nuclear activity. The use of multiwavelenght information at radio, UV, optical HST and X-ray lead us to conclude that at least 60% of the LINERs are hosting a low

We observe Eris, one of the largest trans-Neptunian objects, in the 300 - 2480 nm range with X-Shooter, the first second-generation instrument for the ESOVery Large Telescope, and compare the newly obtained spectra with those available in the literature. The large spectra coverage and high resolving power ( / ' 5000) of X-Shooter allow us to study

High-resolution near-ultraviolet spectra of the yellow hypergiants HR 8752 and rho Cassiopeiae indicate high effective temperatures, placing both stars near the low-T_eff border of the ``yellow evolutionary void.'' At present, the temperature of HR 8752 is higher than ever. For this star we found T_eff=7900+/-200 K, whereas rho Cassiopeiae has T

We have measured the ^12^C/^13^C interstellar ratio in the Coalsack, a prominent dark nebula in the southern sky, by means of high resolution (λ/δλ=6x10^4^) observations of the λ4232A CH^+^ line in the direction of the star HD110432 (d=~0.31kpc). The collection of a total of 53 spectra of this star and of a reference bright star (α Vir) has allowed