We present a study of the star formation rate (SFR) for a sample of 16 distant galaxies detected by ISOCAM at 15 μm in the CFRS0300+00 and CFRS1400+52 fields. Their high quality and intermediate resolution VLT/FORS spectra have allowed a proper correction of the Balmer emission lines from the underlying absorption. Extinction estimates using the Hβ

We present stellar parameters and metallicities, obtained from a detailed spectroscopic analysis, for a large sample of 98 stars known to be orbited by planetary mass companions (almost all known targets), as well as for a volume-limited sample of 41 stars not known to host any planet. For most of the stars the stellar parameters are revised

Tables with kinematic data and chemical abundances for the sample. The atomic line data are also provided. The data in FITS are available in the internet from the project site S4N (Spectrsocopic Survey of Stars in the Solar Neighborhood) at http://hebe.as.utexas.edu/s4n/ and at its mirror http://www.astro.uu.se/~s4n/ (3 data files).

In 1995 we commenced a detailed spectral and photometric study of Shakhbazian compact groups. In this paper the results on groups ShCG 181, ShCG 344, ShCG 361, and ShCG 362 are presented. The redshifts of member galaxies in groups and the radial velocity dispersions, the results of the surface photometry in BVR, the profiles of the surface

We have used CCD imaging polarimetry to obtain linear polarization measurements of background stars toward the filamentary Musca dark cloud. We present a catalog of 2497 objects with polarization signal-to-noise ratio larger than 5. This allows us to build polarization maps to infer the detailed geometry of the local magnetic field. We show

We investigate the feasibility of measuring line-of-sight magnetic field strength in the solar chromosphere through Stokes polarimetry in the hydrogen Hα line. Because of the large intrinsic Doppler width of the hydrogen line, the weak-field approximation applies even for the strongest magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere. We calculate the Hα