In the course of a 2.2 micron monitoring programme of nearby Seyfert 1 galaxies, we have detected an outburst in NGC 4051 in which the source flared and dimmed by more than a factor of 2 in 6 months. The UV flux, although sparsely sampled, is less variable than the near infrared. The available data suggest that dust reprocessing of the UV radiation

A new near-infrared camera, SHARP (System for High Angular Resolution Pictures), has been used at the 3.5m ESO NTI' to produce near-diffraction-limited K-band images of the galactic centre region. The new images show a substantial improvement in resolution and sensitivity over previous K-band images. IRS 16 splits into about 20 compact sources, the

3C 227 (z = 0.085) exhibits one of the more spectacular extended nebulosities to be found among active galaxies at moderate redshifts. The gas can be traced to radial distances of about 100 kpc. The total forbidden O III 5007 A luminosity is 2.7 x 10 exp 42 erg/s, of which at least 50 percent is radiated from the extended region rather than from

The first results of an analysis of the spatial variations along and across the ENLR of NGC 4151 are presented. The excitation of the gas clearly decreases with distance from the nucleus. The mean energy of the ionizing continuum deduced from the He II/H-beta ratio is compatible in the SW with a power law of spectral index -1.5. The angular

The distribution of sunspot decay rates is studied using the Greenwich Photoheliographic Results (GPR) for a total of approximately hundred years between 1874 and 1976. The decay rates are seen to be lognormally distributed. The discrepancies between the decay rates given in the past by different authors are shown to originate as a consequence of

Predictions about the angular behavior of the emission line spectrum from the ENLR for three plausible models of the nuclear engine are presented. Results are given for the different intensities at different inclination angles with respect to the symmetry axis.