We present a new luminosity-colour relation based on trigonometric parallaxes for thin-disc main-sequence stars in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry. We matched stars from the newly reduced Hipparcos catalogue with the ones taken from Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) All-Sky Catalogue of Point Sources, and applied a series of constraints

The accretion of matter onto a massive black hole is believed to feed the relativistic plasma jets found in many active galactic nuclei (AGN). Although some AGN accelerate particles to energies exceeding 1012 electron volts and are bright sources of very-high-energy (VHE) γ-ray emission, it is not yet known where the VHE emission originates. Here

We present high time-resolution spectroscopy of the eclipsing cataclysmic variable SDSSJ143317.78+101123.3 obtained with QUCAM2, a high-speed/low-noise electron-multiplying CCD camera. Littlefair et al. measured the mass of the secondary star in SDSSJ143317.78+101123.3 using a light-curve fitting technique and obtained a value of M2 = 0.060 +/- 0

Context: In the last 8 Gyr of cosmic time the global star formation rate (SFR) has declined by roughly an order of magnitude, and most of this activity has been progressively confined to ever less massive galaxies (“downsizing”). Previous studies show that the main drivers of the decline in the global SFR are the spiral galaxies. However, we still

We explore the age distribution of the globular cluster (GC) system of the nearby elliptical galaxy NGC 5128 using ultraviolet (UV) photometry from GALEX observations, with UV-optical colors used as the age indicator. Most GCs in NGC 5128 follow the general trends of GCs in M31 and the Milky Way in the UV-optical color-color diagram, which

Aims: We determine the effective temperature, surface gravity and projected rotational velocity of nine T dwarfs from the comparison of high-resolution near-infrared spectra and synthetic models, and estimate the mass and age of the objects from state-of-the-art models. Methods: We use the AMES-COND cloudless solar metallicity models provided by