Systematic photometric monitoring of active RS CVn binaries carried out at Catania with the automatic telescope APT-80, is being complemented with Hα low- and high-resolution spectroscopy. The relationship between photospheric and chromospheric activity is investigated in order to shed light into the complex three-dimensional structure of surface activity. Preliminary results on the photometric and Hα monitoring of the active binaries, UX Ari, RS CVn, BM CVn, HK Lac, IM Peg, V 711 Tau, and EI Eri, are here reported.

The literature concerning spectroscopic studies, abundances, photometry and systematics of Hg-Mn stars is reviewed since the last international meeting on chemically peculiar stars in the Crimea in 1985, and is intended to be complete to the end of 1991.

The MPIfR is working together with SKA-SA and the Universities of Manchester and Oxford to deploy three instruments on MeerKAT: An S-band receiver system, a dedicated beamforming cluster and a flexible pulsar search cluster. Together these instruments will provide MeerKAT with powerful tools for supporting a wide range of scientific applications and in particular will enable large-scale pulsar and fast transient surveys to be performed. In these proceedings we describe the design, implementation and deployment timeline for these instruments.

The theory of planetary accumulation leads quite definitely to the conclusion that the formation of Oort's cometary cloud is the result of ejection of bodies to the outermost parts of the solar system due to encounters with the giant planets during their growth. Uranus and Neptune could have grown to their present dimensions only if the initial mass of solid material in their zones were substantially larger than that of these planets. The relative velocities of the bodies were increased through perturbations by the planetary embryos, and on reaching the escape velocity they would start to be ejected. Our concept of this process differs from that suggested by Öpik by the assumption that Jupiter and Saturn accreted hydrogen, not in solid but in gaseous state, and by the introduction of a more effective mechanism for the interaction with several embryos. In their final stages the embryos ejected amounts of mass an order of magnitude higher than the amounts accreted. Most of the mass was ejected into interstellar space by Jupiter, but the cometary cloud was created mainly by Neptune. The mass of the cloud is estimated to be about three times that of the Earth.

Due to their small radii, M dwarfs are very promising targets to search for transiting super-Earths, with a planet of 2 Earth radii orbiting an M5 dwarf in the habitable zone giving rise to a 0.5% photometric signal, with a period of two weeks. This can be detected from the ground using modest-aperture telescopes by targeting samples of nearby M dwarfs. Such planets would be very amenable to follow-up studies due to the brightness of the parent stars, and the favourable planet-star flux ratio. MEarth is such a transit survey of ~2000 nearby M dwarfs. Since the targets are distributed over the entire (Northern) sky, it is necessary to observe them individually, which will be done by using 8 independent 0.4m robotic telescopes, two of which have been in operation since December 2007 at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) located on Mount Hopkins, Arizona. We discuss the survey design and hardware, and report on the current status of the survey, and preliminary results obtained from the commissioning data.

Several advantages of near infrared spectral lines for magnetic field measurements are listed. In particular, the 10830 Å multiplet of HeI is well suited for observations of chromospheric magnetic fields.

New photoelectric spectroheliograms made with the 10830 Å line reveal a large amount of filamentary fine structure in active regions. This fine structure has important consequences on the interpretation of 10830 Å magnetograms. Except for an association of 10830 Å disk filaments with polarity reversals there is little correlation between absorption features and the 10830 Å longitudinal field. Comparisons of chromospheric and photospheric observations show that the chromospheric field is spatially more diffuse and weaker than the photospheric field.

We present results from our ongoing monitoring programs aimed at identifying and understanding Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in extreme flux and spectral states. Observations of AGN in extreme states can reveal the nature of the inner accretion flow, the physics of matter under strong gravity, and they provide insight on the properties of ionized absorbers and outflows launched near supermassive black holes (SMBHs). We present new results from our long-term monitoring of IC 3599, WPVS007, and Mrk 335, multi-wavelength follow-ups of the newly identified changing-look AGN HE 1136–2304, and UV–X-ray follow-ups of the binary SMBH candidate OJ 287 after its 2015 optical maximum, now in a new optical-X-ray–high-state.

Adaptive Optics (AO) will be essential for accomplishing many, if not most, of the science objectives currently planned for Extremely Large Telescopes including GMT, OWL, and TMT. AO will be needed to support a range of instrumentation, including near infrared (IR) imagers and spectrometers, mid IR imagers and spectrometers, “planet finding” instrumentation and wide-field optical spectrographs. Multiple advanced AO systems, utilizing the full range of concepts currently under development, will need to be combined into an integrated architecture to meet a broad range of requirements for field-of-view, spatial resolution and spectral bandpass.

In this paper, we describe several of the possible options for these systems and outline the range of issues, trade studies and component development activities which must be addressed. Some of these challenges include very high-order, large-stroke wavefront correction, tip-tilt sensing with faint natural guide stars to maximize sky coverage, laser guide star wavefront sensing on a very large aperture and achieving extremely high contrast ratios for the detection of extra-solar planet and other faint companions of nearby bright stars.

The Sun is moving in respect to the nearby stars with a velocity of 20 km.s-1 in the direction of the Apex, α = 271° and δ = 30° (celestial coordinates). As the lights of a car illuminate the water droplets when driving in the fog, the Sun illuminates the Hydrogen and helium atoms of the interstellar medium which it travels through. As a result, the sun and the whole solar system are imbedded in a glow of the resonance lines of hydrogen (H Lyman α ; 121.6 nm) and helium (58.4 nm), which have been studied by several space instruments in the last 14 years.

From the intensity distribution of the glow in the solar system, one can derive the density of H and He in the L1SM and the direction of the relative motion between the sun and the LISM in the very vicinity of the sun. The velocity module Vw and the LISM temperature T are more adequately found from a measurement of the Lyman α line shape, which is an image of the velocity distribution of H atoms.

A summary of results will be presented, together with a discussion of the methods of interpretation and their difficulties. The vector is found to be 20 ± 1 km.s-1 in the direction α = 254 ± 3°, δ = - 17 ± 3°, quite different from the Apex direction. This means that the LISM is moving also in respect to the local frame of reference giving rise to the socalled Interstellar Wind. This wind blows in the galactic plane at 16 km.s-1, in the direction , significantly different from the direction found by interstellar absorption lines on stars within ≃ 100 pc, pointing to a local significance of this flow. The temperature of the LISM is T = 8,000 ± 1,000 K, the density n (H) ≃ 0.04 to 0.06 cm-3, and the helium density n (He) ≃ 0.015 to 0.020. The high helium/hydrogen ratio, in respect to the cosmological ratio, would imply that a substantial part of the hydrogen is ionized. Temperature, density and degree of ionization of the LISM are suggesting that the sun is now in an intermediate phase of the interstellar medium, at the Interface between a hot and tenuous gas, and a dense and cold cloud of gas.

We report on early data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), a NASA Explorer Mission launched on April 28, with a nominal mission start of June 19. GALEX is performing the first space UV sky-survey, including imaging and grism surveys in two bands (1350–1750 Å and 1750–2800 Å). The surveys include an all-sky imaging survey (limit AB∼20–21), a medium imaging survey of 1000 sq. deg (limit AB∼23.5), a deep imaging survey of 100 deg2 (limit AB∼25.5), and a nearby galaxy survey. Spectroscopic grism surveys (R=100–300) will be performed with various depths and sky coverage. Many targets overlap existing or planned surveys, including SDSS, DEEP, NOAODWS, VIRMOS, SWIRE, SINGS, SIRTF-GTO, Chandra, and HST/ACS. We will use the measured UV properties of local galaxies, along with corollary observations, to calibrate the UV-global star formation rate relationship in galaxies. We will apply this calibration to distant galaxies discovered in the deep imaging and spectroscopic surveys to map the history of star formation in the universe over the redshift range 0<z<2. The GALEX mission will include a Guest Investigator program for primary observations and supporting data analysis. This will support a wide variety of investigations made possible by the first UV sky survey.

The recent solar minimum (2008-2009) was extreme in several aspects: the sunspot number, Rz, interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) magnitude Bo and solar wind speed Vsw were the lowest during the space era. Furthermore, the variance of the IMF southward Bz component was low. As a consequence of these exceedingly low solar wind parameters, there was a minimum in the energy transfer from solar wind to the magnetosphere, and the geomagnetic activity ap index reached extremely low levels. The minimum in geomagnetic activity was delayed in relation to sunspot cycle minimum. We compare the solar wind and geomagnetic activity observed in this recent minimum with previous solar cycle values during the space era (1964-2010). Moreover, the geomagnetic activity conditions during the current minimum are compared with long term variability during the period of available geomagnetic observations. The extremely low geomagnetic activity observed in this solar minimum was previously recorded only at the end of XIX century and at the beginning of the XX century, and this might be related to the Gleissberg (80-100 years) solar cycle.

The physical origin of associated absorption lines (zabs ≈ zqso) which are observed in radio-loud quasar is generally not well understood. Two observable properties, line variability and quasar optical polarization, can serve to constrain the possibilities. To this end, we have obtained high-resolution spectra (1 Å) and broad-band optical polarizations for over 30 radio-loud quasars with known CIV associated absorption. The quasars are at redshifts between about 1 and 2, and were previously observed spectroscopically at similar resolution between 1985 – 1986 by Foltz et al (1987). The associated CIV absorption systems include a variety of velocity profiles from weak single lines to very complex multi-component systems to the BAL-like profile of PHL 1157+0128. In this poster we show the first strong evidence for line variability in z > 1 radio-loud quasars. We find that in general the variability is less than ~ 30%. The optical polarization of CIV absorbed quasars is consistent with all radio-loud quasars.

We successfully ported the suite of codes developed by R. L. Kurucz for stellar atmosphere modelling, abundance determination and synthetic spectra calculation, to run under GNU-Linux. The ported codes include ATLAS 9 and ATLAS 12 for 1-D plane-parallel atmosphere model calculation, DFSYNTHE, which calculates the Opacity Distribution Functions (ODF) to be used with ATLAS 9, WIDTH to derive chemical abundances from measured line Equivalent Widths (EW) and SYNTHE to calculate synthetic spectra. The codes input and output files remain fully compatible with the VMS versions, while the computation speed has been greatly increased due to the high efficiency of modern PC CPUs. As an example, ATLAS 9 model calculations and the computation of large (e.g. 10 nm) synthetic spectra can be executed in a matter of minutes on any mainstream laptop computer. Arbitrary chemical compositions can be used in calculations (by using ATLAS 12 through opacity sampling or by calculating ad-hoc ODFs for ATLAS 9). The large set of scripting languages existing under Linux (shell, perl, python. . .) and the availability of low-cost multiprocessor Linux architectures (such as Beowulf) makes the port highly effective to build model farms to produce large quantities of atmosphere models or synthetic spectra (e.g. for the production of integrated light synthetic spectra). The port is hosted on a dedicated website including a download section for source codes, precompiled binaries, needed data (opacities, line lists and so on), sample launch scripts and documentation.

The capture and disruption of stars by supermassive black holes (SMBHs), and the formation and coalescence of binaries, are inevitable consequences of the presence of SMBHs at the cores of galaxies. Pairs of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and binary SMBHs are important stages in the evolution of galaxy mergers, and an intense search for these systems is currently ongoing. In the early and advanced stages of galaxy merging, observations of the triggering of accretion onto one or both BHs inform us about feedback processes and BH growth. Identification of the compact binary SMBHs at parsec and sub-parsec scales provides us with important constraints on the interaction processes that govern the shrinkage of the binary beyond the “final parsec”. Coalescing binary SMBHs are among the most powerful sources of gravitational waves (GWs) in the universe. Stellar tidal disruption events (TDEs) appear as luminous, transient, accretion flares when part of the stellar material is accreted by the SMBH. About 30 events have been identified by multi-wavelength observations by now, and they will be detected in the thousands in future ground-based or space-based transient surveys. The study of TDEs provides us with a variety of new astrophysical tools and applications, related to fundamental physics or astrophysics. Here, we provide a review of the current status of observations of SMBH pairs and binaries, and TDEs, and discuss astrophysical implications.

At present, hydrodynamical simulations in computational star formation are either carried out with Eulerian mesh-based approaches or with the Lagrangian smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) technique. Both methods differ in their strengths and weaknesses, as well as in their error properties. It would be highly desirable to find an intermediate discretization scheme that combines the accuracy advantage of mesh-based methods with the automatic adaptivity and Galilean invariance of SPH. Here we briefly describe the novel AREPO code which achieves these goals based on a moving unstructured mesh defined by the Voronoi tessellation of a set of discrete points. The mesh is used to solve the hyperbolic conservation laws of ideal hydrodynamics with a finite volume approach, based on a second-order unsplit Godunov scheme with an exact Riemann solver. A particularly powerful feature is that the mesh-generating points can in principle be moved arbitrarily. If they are given the velocity of the local flow, an accurate Lagrangian formulation of continuum hydrodynamics is obtained that features a very low numerical diffusivity and is free of mesh distortion problems. If the points are kept fixed, the scheme is equivalent to a Eulerian code on a structured mesh. The new AREPO code appears especially well suited for problems such as gravitational fragmentation or compressible turbulence.

The luminosity function (LF) and total space density of white dwarfs in the solar neighborhood contain important information about the star formation history of the stellar population, and provide an independent method of measuring its age. The first empirical estimates of the LF for degenerate stars were those of Weidemann (1967), Kovetz and Shaviv (1976) and Sion and Liebert (1977). The follow-up investigations made possible by the huge Luyten Palomar proper motion surveys, however, added many more faint white dwarfs to the known sample. While the number of known cool white dwarfs grew to nearly one hundred, these did not include any that were much fainter intrinsically than the coolest degenerates found from the early Luyten, van Biesbroeck and Eggen-Greenstein lists.

We describe two ongoing studies of QSO broad emissionline regions (BELRs). The first employs the N V λ1240/He II λ1640 and N V/C IV λ1549 line ratios as diagnostics of QSO metallicities. Hamann & Ferland and Ferland et al. showed that many observed N V ratios require enhanced N abundances and Z > Z⊙. Here we present new measurements of large line ratios at redshifts z > 4, which indicate super-solar abundances within ~1 Gyr of the Big Bang (for q0 ≈ 0.5). We also note that the N V line is relatively stronger in more luminous QSOs, in contrast to the well-known Baldwin effect in Lyα, C IV, and O VI λ1034. This unusual behavior in N V could be due to a luminosity-metallicity correlation among QSOs that is coupled to a mass-metallicity relation in their host galaxies.

Our second study involves Ne VIII λ774 as a probe of highly ionized gas. We show that a broad emission feature near 774 Å is common in QSOs. Photoionization models indicate that Ne VIII is the most likely identification for this feature. The models also indicate that the Ne VIII emitting gas covers > 40% of the continuum source, has a total hydrogen column density of NH > 1022 cm−2 (for solar abundances) and an ionization parameter of U > 5 (for a nominal QSO continuum shape). This gas would be an X-ray “warm73x201D; absorber — with O VII–O VIII bound-free edges — if it lies along our line-of-sight to the X-ray continuum source.

Based on radio continuum surveys of the Galactic plane at wavelengths of 21 cm and 11 cm we have so far identified about 32 new supernova remnants in the area 357°.4 ≤ℓ≤ 76°. |b| ≤ 5°. This increases the number of known objects in this field by about 68%. Most of them are in the Galactic latitude range |b| 〉 0°.5. Some implications are discussed.

Nowadays there is no field research which is not flooded with data. Among the sciences, astrophysics has always been driven by the analysis of massive amounts of data. The development of new and more sophisticated observation facilities, both ground-based and spaceborne, has led data more and more complex (Variety), an exponential growth of both data Volume (i.e., in the order of petabytes), and Velocity in terms of production and transmission. Therefore, new and advanced processing solutions will be needed to process this huge amount of data. We investigate some of these solutions, based on machine learning models as well as tools and architectures for Big Data analysis that can be exploited in the astrophysical context.

As a result of mutual inelastic collisions, frequent on a geologic time scale, the mass distribution of asteroids undergoes constant change. Using a simplified velocity distribution for asteroids, the redistribution of their masses caused by collisions can be mathematically modeled as a stochastic process and the distribution of asteroidal masses can then be obtained as the solution. This paper is a review of recent progress on this problem.

The most detailed discussion of this problem considers the influence of the following collisional processes on the asteroidal mass distribution: (1) loss of asteroids by catastrophic breakup, (2) creation of new objects from the fragments of a catastrophically disrupted one, (3) erosive reduction in the masses of individual asteroids, and (4) erosive creation of new objects (i.e., production of secondary ejecta during erosive cratering by projectiles not large enough to catastrophically disrupt the target object). The main result is that after a sufficiently long period of time the population of asteroids may reach a quasi-steady-state distribution, regardless of the initial distribution. This final distribution is a product of a slowly decreasing function of time by a power law of index 11/6 for masses smaller than the largest asteroids. For the largest asteroids, an additional factor is included that expresses the influence on the distribution of the absence of masses larger than those observed. The observed distribution of bright asteroids from the McDonald asteroidal survey and that of faint ones from the Palomar-Leiden asteroidal survey are each individually consistent with the theoretical distribution, although they differ from each other by a numerical factor.