Context. Transit or eclipse timing variations have proven to be a valuable tool in exoplanet research. However, no simple way to estimate the potential precision of such timing measures has been presented yet, nor are guidelines available regarding the relation between timing errors and sampling rate. Aims: A timing error estimator (TEE) equation

We present chemical abundances of carbon (C) and oxygen (O) in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds from deep and high-quality optical spectra of H II regions. The data have been taken using the Ultraviolet-Visual Echelle Spectrograph at the 8.2-m Very Large Telescope with the goal of detecting the faint C II and O II recombination lines. For all

Stellar clusters form by gravitational collapse of turbulent molecular clouds, with up to several thousand stars per cluster1. They are thought to be the birthplace of most stars and therefore play an important role in our understanding of star formation, a fundamental problem in astrophysics2,3. The initial conditions of the molecular cloud

We study the dynamics and topology of an emerging magnetic flux concentration using high spatial resolution spectropolarimetric data acquired with the Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment on board the sunrise balloon-borne solar observatory. We obtain the full vector magnetic field and the line of sight (LOS) velocity through inversions of the Fe i line

We present the results of an optical spectroscopic monitoring program targeting NGC 5548 as part of a larger multiwavelength reverberation mapping campaign. The campaign spanned 6 months and achieved an almost daily cadence with observations from five ground-based telescopes. The Hβ and He ii λ4686 broad emission-line light curves lag that of the

Trying to reach diffraction-limited astronomical observations from ground-based telescopes is very challenging due to the atmospheric effects contributing to a general blurring of the images. However, astronomy is not the only science facing turbulence problems; obtaining quality images of the undersea world is as ambitious as it is on the sky. One