The prompt information given by the GRB Coordinates Network (GCN) differs very much for different GRBs. We compare the optical magnitudes quoted in GCNs for some recent events. Our compilation might help in planning coordinated observations in the future.

We have carried out multi-epoch, time-series differential I-band photometry of a large sample of objects in the south-east region of the young (˜3 Myr), nearby (˜350 pc) σ Orionis open cluster. A field of ˜1000 arcmin2 was monitored during four nights over a period of two years. Using this dataset, we have studied the photometric variability of

Four years after its announcement at SPIE, FLAMES, the VLT fibre facility, has been completed, integrated into the VLT observatory and commissioned. It has been in operation since February 2003. More than 250000 scientific (single) spectra have been obtained, which have enabled the on-sky performance of the instrument to be compared to the

A Camera Barrel, located in the OSIRIS imager/spectrograph for the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), is described in this article. The barrel design has been developed by the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Mexico (IA-UNAM), in collaboration with the Institute for Astrophysics of Canarias (IAC), Spain. The barrel is being manufactured by

All B, R, I and Hα images described in the paper are presented electronically, along with the Ks images from Paper I (Knapen et al., 2003MNRAS.344..527K). The images are in FITS format, with basic parameters like pixel scale and calibration described in the FITS headers. All images have been reduced to the equivalent of 1 second exposure time. The

We present optical and NIR (near infrared) follow up observations of the GRB 001109 from 1 to 300 days after the burst. No transient emission was found at these wavelengths within this GRB's (Gamma Ray Burst) 50 arcsec radius BeppoSAX error box. Strong limits (3σ) are set with: R ⪆ 21, 10.2 h after the GRB; I ⪆ 23, 11.4 h after the GRB; H ⪆ 20.7, 9