Beginning in 2001, the Gemini Observatory began the development of an innovative and aggressive education and outreach program at its Southern Hemisphere site in northern Chile. A principal focus of this effort is centered on local education and outreach to communities surrounding the observatory and its base facility in La Serena Chile. Programs

We describe a simple technique for the acceleration of spectro-polarimetric inversions based on principal component analysis (PCA) of Stokes profiles. This technique involves the indexing of the database models based on the sign of the projections (PCA coefficients) of the first few relevant orders of principal components of the four Stokes

We investigate the diagnostic potential of polarimetric measurements with filtergraph instruments. Numerical simulations are used to explore the possibility of inferring the magnetic field vector, its filling factor, and the thermodynamics of model atmospheres when only a few wavelength measurements are available. These simulations assume the

We discuss several lines of evidence indicating that gas is flowing into the solar neighborhood and go on to offer a theoretical framework to explain this phenomenon, which is important for any model of the chemical and dynamical evolution of the Galaxy. We derive a theoretical age distribution for the G dwarf stars in the solar neighborhood that

We have studied the influence of gravitational microlensing on the Fe Kalpha line originating from a compact accretion disc of active galactic nuclei. We found that microlensing can produce line profile deformation as well as a significant amplification of the line flux. The line deformation and line flux amplification depend not only on the

We present the first infrared (IR) light curves in the J, H and K bands of δ Lib obtained at different observing runs from 1994 to 1998. These IR light curves, showing a secondary minimum much deeper than in visual bands, have been analysed in order to determine a new set of physical parameters. A new program using the Roche geometry, and stellar