High signal-to-noise ratio spectroscopic observations of the BL Lac object S4 0954+65 at the alleged redshift z = 0.367 are presented. This source was detected at gamma frequencies by the MAGIC (TeV) and FERMI (GeV) telescopes during a remarkable outburst that occurred in 2015 February, making the determination of its distance particularly relevant

We present optical imaging and long slit spectroscopic observations of nine luminous type 2 active galactic nuclei (AGN) within the redshift range 0.3 z 0.6 based on Very Large Telescope Focal Reducer and Low Dispersion Spectrograph (VLT FORS2) data. Most objects (6/9) are high luminosity Seyfert 2, and three are type 2 quasars (QSO2), with our

The flat-spectrum radio quasar PKS 1441+25 at a redshift of z = 0.940 is detected between 40 and 250 GeV with a significance of 25.5σ using the MAGIC telescopes. Together with the gravitationally lensed blazar QSO B0218+357 (z = 0.944), PKS 1441+25 is the most distant very high energy (VHE) blazar detected to date. The observations were triggered

We identified and characterized the largest (536) RR Lyrae (RRL) sample in a Milky Way dSph satellite (Sculptor) based on optical photometry data collected over ˜24 years. The RRLs display a spread in V-magnitude (˜0.35 mag) which appears larger than photometric errors and the horizontal branch (HB) luminosity evolution of a mono-metallic