We have put into practice the technique to minimize the instrumental polarization (IP) of coude telescopes proposed by Martinez Pillet & Sanchez Almeida (1991): a λ/2-plate inserted into the optical path, with the proper orientation, cancels the IP. The compensation of the Gregory-Coude Telescope at the Observatorio del Teide turns out to fulfil

A prototype system for the Permanent All Sky Survey (PASS) project is presented. PASS is a continuous photometric survey of the entire celestial sphere with a high temporal resolution. Its major objectives are the detection of all giant-planet transits (with periods up to some weeks) across stars up to mag 10.5, and to deliver continuously

We report the discovery of an extremely large (Rb ∼2.77 arcsec ≈ 4.2 kpc) core in the brightest cluster galaxy, IC 1101, of the rich galaxy cluster Abell 2029. Luminous core-Sérsic galaxies contain depleted cores - with sizes (Rb) typically 20-500 pc - that are thought to be formed by coalescing black hole binaries. We fit a (double nucleus) +

We report the discovery of a new broad interstellar (or circumstellar) band at 7088.8 +/- 2.0 Å coincident to within the measurement uncertainties with the strongest band of the anthracene cation (C14H10+) as measured in gas-phase laboratory spectroscopy at low temperatures. The band is detected in the line of sight of star Cernis 52, a likely

IRAS 01005+7910 is a carbon-rich protoplanetary nebula with a recently reported detection of mid-IR vibrational transitions of the fullerene C60 by Zhang and Kwok. We present new high spectral resolution (R ~ 57, 000) observations of this object obtained at the 3.6 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, showing the presence of two absorption bands at 9577

The search for optical emission from radio hot spots has a long history but, up to now, only very few hot spots with optical synchrotron radiation have been detected. We embarked on a project to search for optical hot spot emission with VLT. We present the first results of near-infrared and optical imaging observations which detected synchrotron