We explore the potential of Gaia for the field of benchmark ultracool/brown dwarf companions, and present the results of an initial search for metal-rich/metal-poor systems. A simulated population of resolved ultracool dwarf companions to Gaia primary stars is generated and assessed. Of the order of ˜24 000 companions should be identifiable outside

We compare recent precise/reliable nebular abundances - as derived from high-quality optical spectra and the most recent ICFs - in a sample of Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) with nucleosynthesis predictions (HeCNOCl) from asymptotic giant branch (AGB) ATON models in the metallicity range Z ⊙/4 < Z < 2Z ⊙. According to the infrared dust features

We claim that the discrepancy found between the theoretical predictions for the cosmic mass function and those found in numerical simulations is due to the fact that in deriving the former, all mass elements are assumed to be at the center of the object they belong to (the all-mass-at-center problem). By an appropriate treatment of this problem

A low dispersion objective-prism survey for low-redshift emission-line galaxies (ELGs) is being carried out by the University Complutense de Madrid with the Schmidt telescope at the German-Spanish Observatory of Calar Alto (Almeria, Spain). A 4deg full aperture prism, which provides a dispersion of 1950A/mm, and IIIa-F emulsion combination has been

VLT J- to M'-band adaptive optics observations of the Circinus galaxy on parsec scales resolve a central bright Ks-band source with a FWHM size of 1.9+/-0.6 pc. This source is only visible at wavelengths longward of 1.6 μm and coincides in position with the peak of the [Si VII] 2.48 μm coronal line emission. With respect to the peak of the central

We have conducted a deep multiwavelength analysis (0.15-160 μm) to study the outer region of the nearby galaxy M94. We show that the non-optical data support the idea that the outskirts of this galaxy are not formed by a closed stellar ring (as traditionally claimed in the literature) but by a spiral arm structure. In this sense, M94 is a good