A quantitative comparison between the Milne-Eddington (ME) inversion technique implemented by Skumanich & Lites and the SIR (Stokes Inversion based on Response Functions) proposed by Ruiz Cobo & del Toro Iniesta is presented. Numerical experiments are carried out to explore the capabilities and limitations of both diagnostic techniques. Such

Rotation curves and velocity dispersion profiles are presented for both the stellar and gaseous components along five different position angles (PA =5°, 50°, 95°, 125°, and 155°) of the nearby barred spiral NGC 6221. The observed kinematics extends out to about 80'' from the nucleus. Narrow and broad-band imaging is also presented. The radial

We have completely mapped the Galactic globular cluster NGC 1851 with large-field, ground-based VI CCD photometry and pre-repair HST/WFPC1 data for the central region. The photometric data set has allowed a V vs. (V-I) colour-magnitude diagram for ~20500 stars to be constructed. From the apparent luminosity of the horizontal branch (HB) we derive a

Following the announcement of a new period of activity of the soft gamma-ray repeater SGR 1806-20 in 1996 November, we have performed follow-up observations of the IR counterpart, which has been proposed as a luminous blue variable or B[e] star. We have found that no variability larger than 0.1 mag in the K-band is present in the data. No variation

We present N, 8.7 mu m, 9.8 mu m 12.5 mu m and Q bolometry of 26 stars which were observed on the IRTF. These are primarily K giants which have been well measured at other wavelengths and are chosen to be single and non-variable. Hence the data presented provides a new homogeneous set of mid IR standards. As a test of part of the calibration

The Faint Object Spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is used to obtain spectra in the wavelength range lambda lambda 1150-4800 of three planetary nebulae in the Small Magellanic Cloud and 10 planetary nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This sample extends the sample of 12 objects previously observed with HST and reported in