The use of deep blank fields is crucial for the correct operation of the GTC. Hitherto, the list of deepest blank fields was the compilation by M. Azzaro for the ING telescope. However, they demonstrated to be shallow for large class telescopes. We used TESELA, a new VO tool, to determine blank fields for their use with OSIRIS at the GTC. The

Taking advantage of the Virtual Observatory, we have searched for deep blank fields (DBFs) throughout the whole sky, with a minimum size of 10' diameter and an increasing threshold magnitude from 15 to 18 in USNO-B R band. The result is the catalogue with the deepest blank fields known so far. Some of them have been tested with the 10.4m GTC

Context. In a probabilistic framework of the interpretation of the initial mass function (IMF), the IMF cannot be arbitrarily normalized to the total mass, ℳ, or number of stars, N, of the system. Hence, the inference of ℳ and N when partial information about the studied system is available must be revised (i.e., the contribution to the total

Context. Our understanding of stellar systems depends on the adopted interpretation of the initial mass function, IMF φ(m). Unfortunately, there is not a common interpretation of the IMF, which leads to different methodologies and diverging analysis of observational data. Aims: We study the correlation between the most massive star that a cluster

We present the study of the CoRoT transiting planet candidate 101186644, also named LRc01_E1_4780. Analysis of the CoRoT lightcurve and the HARPS spectroscopic follow-up observations of this faint (mV = 16) candidate revealed an eclipsing binary composed of a late F-type primary (Teff = 6090 ± 200 K) and a low-mass, dense late M-dwarf secondary on

Size evolution studies have shown that the structural properties of the elliptical galaxies dramatically changed with cosmic time (e. g. Trujillo et al. 2007). This result challenges the ideas developed from the detailed analyses of the stellar populations of these galaxies in the nearby universe. The study of the local elliptical galaxies has