Analyses of the abundances of neutron-capture elements have led to the belief that these elements in metal-poor stars are r-process products with relative abundances closely resembling those found in the Solar system. This picture was challenged by Magain, who found that a pure r-process mix of the barium isotopes was inconsistent with the mix of

We discuss the effects of microlensing on the broad emission lines (BELs) of QSOs in the light of recent determinations of the size of the broad-line region (BLR) and its scaling with QSO luminosity. Microlensing by star-sized objects can produce significant amplifications in the BEL of some multiple-imaged QSOs, and could be very relevant for high

Northern Galactic planetary nebulae (PNs) are studied to disclose possible correlations between the morphology of the nebulae and the evolution of the central stars (CSs). To this end, we have built the best database available to date, accounting for homogeneity and completeness. We use updated statistical distances and an updated morphological

In this article, we hope to illustrate the great qualitative and quantitative strides that star-formation studies have taken in the past few years, by looking at three highlights from our own work using the ESO Very Large Telescope UT1, Antu, and its facility near-infrared camera/spectrograph, ISAAC. In particular, we have chosen examples which

We present results from a detailed spectrophotometric analysis of the blue compact dwarf galaxy (BCD) Mrk 370, based on deep UBVRI broadband and Hα narrowband observations, and on long-slit and two-dimensional spectroscopy of its brightest knots. The spectroscopic data are used to derive the internal extinction and to compute metallicities

The only way to obtain reliable empirical information on the intensity and topology of the weak magnetic fields of the quiet solar chromosphere is via the measurement and rigorous physical interpretation of polarization signals in chromospheric spectral lines. The observed Stokes profiles reported here are due to the Hanle and Zeeman effects