When I was assigned the time in La Palma on the JKT, I gave thanks for my extraordinary luck that the observations were scheduled exactly at the perihelion of Comet LINEAR, or C/1999 S4 (LINEAR) as it is correctly known. This would be able to get data on the comet at the start of each night without interrupting the main programme. At the time I

Integral-field spectroscopy (IFS) has merited much attention in recent years due to its advantages with respect to classical sequential 2-D spectroscopic techniques (e.g., long-slit scans, Fabry-Perot) when studying relatively small extended objects. IFS is able to simultaneously obtain a spectrum for each spatial sample of a two-dimensional field.

We present two-dimensional spectroscopy of the 125×125 pc2 circumnuclear region of M31, obtained using two optical fiber systems, INTEGRAL and 2D-FIS, installed at the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, Spain. We present continuum and emission-line maps, emission-line quotients, and

We present near-infrared colour-magnitude diagrams and star counts for a number of regions along the Galactic plane. It is shown that along the l=27°, b=0° line of sight there is a feature at 5.7+/-0.7kpc with a density of stars at least a factor of 2 and probably more than a factor of 5 times that of the disc at the same position. This feature

We present subarcsecond-resolution, ground-based, near-infrared images of the central regions of a sample of 12 barred galaxies with circumnuclear star formation activity, which is organized in ring-like regions typically 1kpc in diameter. We also present Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared images of 10 of our sample galaxies, and compare them

Detailed surface photometry has been carried out for three barred galaxies with use of high resolution CCD broad-band images in the B, V and I bands. Using azimuthal luminosity profiles and their decomposition into Fourier Series, the structural parameters (length and strength) of the bars in the three galaxies have been obtained. We have also