Recientemente se han puesto en funcionamiento telescopios de 8 y 10 metros de diámetro de su espejo primario que están significando un gran avance en las capacidades observacionales de la Astronomía moderna. Igualmente en nuestro país se está construyendo el Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC) que situará a la Astronomía española en la vanguardia de

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LIRIS is an Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias project that consists of a near-infrared intermediate- resolution spectrograph, conceived as a common user instrument for the William Herschel Telescope at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma).

Given the relevance of line strength gradients to study the formation and secular evolution of elliptical galaxies, we propose to measure deep line strength maps of nearby ellipticals with OSIRIS on the GTC. The methods of observing and interpreting these maps are guided and optimized on the basis of highly specialized and sophisticated synthesis

The COSMOS Survey is currently mapping 0.5 deg2 of sky in optical and near-IR bands to definesamples of compact galaxies at high redshift for spectroscopic studies with the GTC. We present galaxy counts in the Ks filter over an area of 120 arcmin2 in two fields, Coppi and Groth, observed with the INGRID near-infrared camera on the William Herschel

The kinematics of the inner zones of disc galaxies have recently been shown to be much more complicated than previously thou-ght. New instruments and more sensitive detectors have allowed us to obtain spectra of higher S/N ratio and resolution, as well as images, for a more refined study of these inner zones. Decoupled kinematic cores have been