We report on our program for multiband photometry observations of Optical Transients of Gamma-Ray Bursts at the 152 cm telescope in Loiano. 40 Km south of Bologna, Italy. Observations in the four semesters starting on July 1st, 2001, were performed for 13 events and allowed positive detections for six of them.

Current astronomical measurements indicate that approximately 73% of the universe is made up of dark energy. Stochastically quantized self-interacting scalar fields can serve as suitable models to generate dark energy. We study a particular model where the scalar field theory underlying dark energy exhibits strongest possible chaotic behaviour. It

Here we present a review of the new generation near infrared spectrographs (1 to 5 microns) available in telescopes from 3.5 m to 10 m in diameter. These instruments have in common the new infrared (IR) detectors with a large 1024 x 1024 pixel format, low read-out noise and low dark current both in the 1-2.5 and 1-5 micron range.

Combining observations of spectral lines with different Zeeman sensitivities, it is possible to infer some properties of the small-scale solar magnetic fields. This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the diagnostics potential of 14 different spectral lines when used for this purpose. These lines span a broad range of wavelengths from the

We present reflectance spectra of 19 V-type asteroids obtained at the 3.6 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo covering 0.8 to 2.5 μm. For 8 of these asteroids we obtained also visible spectra in the same observational run. The range from 0.8 to 2.5 μm, encompassing the 1 and 2 μm pyroxene features, allows a precise mineralogical characterization of

LIRIS is a near-infrared intermediate resolution spectrograph with added capabilities for multi-slit, imaging, coronography, and polarimetry, developed by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC). It will be a common user instrument for the Cassegrain focus of the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in