We present colour transformations from Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) photometric system to Johnson-Cousins system and to Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) system for late-type giants and vice versa. The giant star sample was formed using surface gravity constraints ({2 < log g ≤ 3}) to Cayrel de Strobel et al.' s (2001) spectroscopic catalogue

We present colour transformations for the conversion of the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) photometric system to the Johnson-Cousins UBVRI system and further into the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) ugriz system. We have taken SDSS gri magnitudes of stars measured with the 2.5-m telescope from SDSS Data Release 5 (DR5), and BVRI and JHKs

Context: Over the past decade there have been a series of results supporting the hypothesis of the existence of a long thin bar in the Milky Way with a half-length of 4.5 kpc and a position angle of around 45°. This is apparently a very different structure from the triaxial bulge of the Galaxy, which is thicker and shorter and dominates the star

Low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) that show thermonuclear bursts are ideal sources for constraining the equation of state of neutron star matter. The lack of independent distance measurements for most of these sources, however, prevent a systematic exploration of the masses and radii of the neutron stars, hence limiting the equation-of-state studies

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

We present a compilation of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of 58 luminous Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) type 2 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at ?. Of these, 42 are type 2 quasars, which is a good representation of all optically selected SDSS type 2 quasars in this z range. We find that the majority of the host galaxies are ellipticals (30/42

In this study we present the absolute magnitude calibrations of thin-disc main-sequence stars in the optical , and in the near-infrared . Thin-disc stars are identified by means of Padova isochrones, and absolute magnitudes for the sample are evaluated via the newly reduced Hipparcos data. The obtained calibrations cover a large range of spectral

We present ground-based optical observations of the 2009 September and 2010 January transits of HD 80606b. Based on three partial light curves of the 2009 September event, we derive a midtransit time of Tc [HJD] = 2455099.196 ± 0.026, which is about 1σ away from the previously predicted time. We observed the 2010 January event from nine different

Context: Hydrodynamical cosmological simulations predict flows of the intergalactic medium along the radial vector of the voids, approximately in the direction of the infall of matter at the early stages of the galaxy formation. Aims: These flows might be detected by analysing the dependence of the warp amplitude on the inclination of the galaxies

Aims: Several authors have claimed to detect a significant cross-correlation between microwave WMAP anisotropies and the SDSS galaxy distribution. We repeat these analyses to determine the different cross-correlation uncertainties caused by re-sampling errors and field-to-field fluctuations. The first type of error concerns overlapping sky regions

Aims: We report the detection of transit timing variations (TTVs) well in excess of one hour in the Kepler multi-planet candidate system KOI 806. This system exhibits transits consistent with three separate planets - a Super-Earth, a Jupiter, and a Saturn - lying very nearly in a 1:2:5 resonance, respectively. Methods: We used the Kepler public

Context. The most accepted scenario for the origin of fossil groups is that they are galaxy associations in which the merging rate was fast and efficient. These systems have assembled half of their mass at early epoch of the Universe, subsequently growing by minor mergers, and therefore could contain a fossil record of the galaxy structure

Context. Fossil systems are galaxy associations dominated by a relatively isolated, bright elliptical galaxy, surrounded by a group of smaller galaxies lacking L∗ objects. Because of this extreme environment, fossil groups (FGs) are ideal laboratories for studying the mass assembly of brightest group galaxies (BGGs). Aims: We analyzed the near