Aims:We investigate the statistical properties of the extreme events of the solar cycle as measured by the sunspot number. Methods: The recent advances in the methodology of the theory of extreme values are applied to the maximal extremes of the time series of sunspots. We focus on the extreme events that exceed a carefully chosen threshold and a

IAUC 4252 available at Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. IAUC 4252 available at Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams.

The Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC1) 10m telescope is now being integrated at the ORM, in La Palma Spain. Likewise, three instruments are being prepared for first light and, as of this writing, are about to start their laboratory integration. These first light instruments are: 1) OSIRIS, a large field of view imager and multi-object spectrograph

Until April 2007 the Major Atmospheric Gamma ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescope used a 300 MSamples/s flash analog-to-digital converter (FADC) system to sample the shaped photomultiplier tube (PMT) signals produced by the captured Cherenkov photons of air showers. Different algorithms to reconstruct the signal from the read-out samples

Observations of quiescent filaments show very fine structures which suggests that they can be composed of small-scale threads or fibrils. Two-dimensional, high-resolution observations point out that individual fibrils or groups of fibrils may oscillate independently with their own periods. In this paper, we study the fast magnetohydrodynamic modes

Aims.A model of a elliptically shaped coronal arcade with piecewise constant density is discussed to explore the effects of curvature on radially polarised fast modes. It is important to test whether the main results in the straight and cylindrical geometries can be extrapolated to these more complex equilibria. Methods: .An equilibrium model for a