The Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) is, being assembled at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM) in the island of La Palma. First light is expected for early 2005 with the first science observations late in 2005. The GTC, being a segmented primary mirror telescope, could be employed for testing several technological aspects relevant to

An overview is given of the type I X-ray burst properties of the transient KS 1731-260. These characteristics appear to be proto-typical for all type I X-ray bursters, and stable helium burning occuring at high mass accretion rates could explain them.

We present new observations of the field surrounding the Seyfert galaxy NGC 7603, where four galaxies with different redshifts - NGC 7603 (z=0.029), NGC 7603B (z=0.057) and two fainter emission line galaxies (z=0.245 and z=0.394) - are apparently connected by a narrow filament, leading to a possible case of anomalous redshift. The observations

We present the final band-merged European Large-Area ISO Survey (ELAIS) Catalogue at 6.7, 15, 90 and 175 μm, and the associated data at U, g', r', i', Z, J, H, K and 20 cm. The origin of the survey, infrared and radio observations, data-reduction and optical identifications are briefly reviewed, and a summary of the area covered and the

We present new and accurate near-infrared J- and Ks-band data of the Large Magellanic Cloud cluster Reticulum. Data were collected with SOFI at the New Technology Telescope and covered an area of approximately 5'×5' around the center of the cluster. Current data allowed us to derive accurate mean K-band magnitudes for 21 fundamental (RRab) and 9

The distance to the black hole binary GX 339-4 remains a topic of debate. We examine high-resolution optical spectra of the Na D lines resolving the velocity structure along the line of sight. We find this to be complex, with at least nine components, mostly blueshifted, spanning a velocity range of nearly 200 km s-1. The presence of components