The disks of spiral galaxies are commonly thought to be truncated: the radial surface brightness profile steepens sharply beyond a certain radius (3-5 inner disk scale lengths). Here we present the radial brightness profiles of a number of barred S0-Sb galaxies with the opposite behavior: their outer profiles are distinctly shallower in slope than

We describe a newly discovered detached M dwarf eclipsing binary system. This system was first observed by the TrES network during a long-term photometry campaign of 54 nights. Analysis of the folded light curve indicates two very similar components orbiting each other with a period of 1.12079 +/- 0.00001 days. Spectroscopic observations with the

We present a near-infrared (K'-band) survey of 0.7 square degree area in the α Persei open cluster (age = 90 Myr, distance = 182 pc) carried out with the Omega-Prime camera on the Calar Alto 3.5-m telescope. Combining optical data (Rc and I_c) obtained with the KPNO/MOSA detector and presented in Stauffer et al. (1999) with the K' observations, a

We present results of our survey for planetary transits in the field of NGC 6940. We think nearly all of our observed stars are field stars. We have obtained high precision (~3-10 mmag at the bright end) photometric observations of ~50000 stars spanning 18 nights in an attempt to identify low-amplitude and short-period transit events. We have used

We present two XMM-Newton observations of Jupiter, which were carried out in April and November 2003 for 110 and 250 ks (or 3 and 7 planet rotations) respectively. X-ray images taken with XMM-Newton EPIC CCD cameras show prominent emission, essentially all confined to the 0.2 - 2.0 keV band, from Jupiter's auroral spots; their spectra can be

We report on ESO-VLT near-IR adaptive optics imaging of one radio-loud (PKS 0113-283) and two radio quiet (Q 0045-3337 and Q 0101-337) quasars at z > 2. In the first case we are able to resolve the QSO and find that it is hosted by an elliptical of absolute magnitude MK = -27.6. For the other two objects no extended emission has been unambiguously