Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov telescope is starting its operations with a set of engineering runs to tune the telescope subsystem elements to be ready for the first physics campaign. Many technical improvements have been developed and implemented in several elements of the telescope to reach the lowest energy threshold ever obtained by

We have gathered and analysed a timeseries of 1493 high-quality multicolour Geneva photometric data of the B3V β Cep star HD 129929. The dataset has a time base of 21.2 years. The occurrence of a beating phenomenon is evident from the data. We find evidence for the presence of at least six frequencies, among which we see components of two frequency

We present preliminary results from a set of near-IR integral field spectroscopic observations of the central, star-burst, regions of the barred spiral galaxy M83, obtained with CIRPASS on Gemini-S. We present maps in the Paβ and [Fe{II}] ,1.257 μm emission lines which appear surprisingly different. We outline the procedure in which we will use Paβ

Kinematic and population studies show that bulges are generally rotationally flattened systems similar to low-luminosity ellipticals. However, observations with state-of-the-art integral field spectrographs, such as SAURON, indicate that the situation is much more complex, and allow us to investigate phenomena such as triaxiality, kinematic

The origin of the peculiar stellar complex in the outskirts of the spiral galaxy NGC 6946 is discussed. The complex hosts a superstar cluster, two dozen smaller bright clusters and many high-luminosity stars 5-30 Myears old. In spite of this, no features in H I or CO are associated with the complex. The most simple explanation is that the complex

We present new 26Al stellar yields from rotating Wolf-Rayet stellar models which, at solar metallicity, well reproduce the observed properties of the Wolf-Rayet populations. These new yields are enhanced with respect to non-rotating models, even with respect to non-rotating models computed with enhanced mass loss rates. We briefly discuss some