Recent Spitzer Space Telescope observations of several astrophysical environments such as planetary nebulae, reflection nebulae and R Coronae Borealis stars show the simultaneous presence of mid-infrared features attributed to neutral fullerene molecules (i.e. C60) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). If C60 fullerenes and PAHs coexist in

The 4-m aperture Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) is the next generation ground based solar telescope. In this paper we provide an overview of the ATST post-focus instrumentation. The majority of ATST instrumentation is located in an instrument Coude lab facility, where a rotating platform provides image de-rotation. A high order adaptive

We present single-dish 12CO(1-0) and 12CO(2-1) observations for 14 low-redshift quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). In combination with optical integral field spectroscopy, we study how the cold gas content relates to the star formation rate (SFR) and black hole accretion rate. 12CO(1-0) is detected in 8 of 14 targets and 12CO(2-1) is detected in 7 out

2D-FIS, a bundle of 125 optical fibres mounted in the focal plane of the WHT, has been used to study two-dimensional stellar kinematics and populations in nearby galaxies.

Integral-field spectroscopy (IFS) has merited much attention in recent years due to its advantages with respect to classical sequential 2-D spectroscopic techniques (e.g., long-slit scans, Fabry-Perot) when studying relatively small extended objects. IFS is able to simultaneously obtain a spectrum for each spatial sample of a two-dimensional field.

The Configurable Slit Unit (CSU) is a key module of EMIR (wide field NIR multi-object spectrograph) which will be one of the key next generation instruments of the Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC). The CSU enables a multi-slit configuration, a long slit, or an imaging aperture in the 6’x6’ (340mm x 340mm) field of view. This is realized by 110