We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of the low-mass X-ray binary GR Mus (XB 1254-690), and find strong evidence for the presence of a negative superhump with a period that is 2.4 ± 0.3 per cent shorter than the orbital. This provides further support that GR Mus indeed harbours a precessing accretion disc (with a period of 6.74 ± 0

The Open Cluster Chemical Analysis and Mapping (OCCAM) survey aims to produce a comprehensive, uniform, infrared-based data set for hundreds of open clusters, and constrain key Galactic dynamical and chemical parameters from this sample. This first contribution from the OCCAM survey presents analysis of 141 members stars in 28 open clusters with

The use of integral field spectroscopy is since recently allowing to measure the emission line fluxes of an increasingly large number of star-forming galaxies, both locally and at high redshift. Many studies have used these fluxes to derive the gas-phase metallicity of the galaxies by applying the so-called strong-line methods. However, the

Context. There is still some debate about the presence and the morphological properties of the long bar in the inner Galaxy. Aims: We investigate the morphological properties of the long Galactic bar using the VVV survey extending star counts at least 3 mag deeper than 2MASS. Our study covers the relatively unexplored negative longitudes of the

We present 12CO J = 3→2 maps of NGC 2976 and NGC 3351 obtained with the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), both early targets of the JCMT Nearby Galaxy Legacy Survey (NGLS). We combine the present observations with 12CO J = 1→0 data and find that the computed 12CO J = 3→2 to 12CO J = 1→0 line ratio (R31) agrees with values measured in other NGLS

We compare the number density of compact (small size) massive galaxies at low and high redshift using our Padova Millennium Galaxy and Group Catalogue (PM2GC) at z = 0.03-0.11 and the CANDELS results from Barro et al. at z = 1-2. The number density of local compact galaxies with luminosity weighted (LW) ages compatible with being already passive at