Some cities were built with the idea of establishing cosmic order. The sky used to be a very important component of the landscape that has been lost completely in our modern, overcrowded and excessively illuminated cities. However, this was not the case in the past. Astronomy actually played a most relevant role in urban planning, particularly in

We present the motivation, design and current status of the Open Cluster Chemical Abundances from Spanish Observatories survey (OCCASO). Using the high resolution spectroscopic facilities available at Spanish observatories, OCCASO will derive chemical abundances in a sample of 20 to 25 OCs older than 0.5 Gyr. This sample will be used to study in

We present subarcsecond resolution infrared (IR) imaging and mid-IR (MIR) spectroscopic observations of the Seyfert 1.9 galaxy NGC 2992. The data were obtained using the Gemini North telescope and the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC). In the N-band, the galaxy was observed with a spatial resolution of 0.32'' (55 pc) and the imaging data reveal faint

We present subarcsecond resolution infrared (IR) imaging and mid-IR (MIR) spectroscopic observations of the Seyfert 1.9 galaxy NGC 2992, obtained with the Gemini North Telescope and the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC). The N-band image reveals faint extended emission out to ˜3 kpc, and the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon features detected in the GTC

The IACOB project is an ambitious long-term project which is contributing to step forward in our knowledge about the physical properties and evolution of Galactic massive stars. The project aims at building a large database of high-resolution, multi-epoch, spectra of Galactic OB stars, and the scientific exploitation of the database using state-of

Mapping the low surface brightness (μ >28 mag arcsec^{-2}) structures of the galaxies opens the possibility of testing our current ΛCDM galaxy formation model. At these surface brightness values the accretion history of the galaxies should clearly reveal. We present here two undergoing projects conducted at the IAC whose aim is to explore the