From Hα images of a carefully selected sample of 57 relatively large, Northern spiral galaxies with low inclination, we study the distribution of the Hα emission in the circumnuclear and nuclear regions. At a resolution of around 100 parsec, we find that the nuclear Hα emission in the sample galaxies is often peaked, and significantly more often so

We have used archival survey data, most importantly from the SuperCOSMOS Sky Surveys, to derive accurate proper motions and thus confirm the membership of two previously announced isolated brown dwarfs in the nearby, ˜10 Myr old TW Hydrae Association (TWA), 2MASSW J1207334-393254 and 2MASSW 1139511-315921 (Gizis cite{gizis02}), and to discover a

We present an investigation of a single sunspot observed in the neutral Fe line at 1089.6 nm with the Tenerife Infrared Polarimeter at the Vacuum Tower Telescope on Tenerife. Using the SIR code, we obtain maps of the magnetic field strength, inclination and azimuth, and Doppler velocities. The magnetic field strength drops from 2800 G in the umbra

We report the discovery of a new outburst of the black hole X-ray transient XTE J1118+480 (IAUC #7418, ATEL#64, #67). Observations carried out with the 0.8m IAC80 telescope at the Observatorio del Teide on UT 2005 Jan 9.26 show J1118+480(=KV UMa) at R=14.02, almost 5 mag brighter than the reported quiescent level (IAUC #7868). On UT Jan 12.12-12.30

Time resolved (40-sec resolution, ~6-hours per night), R-band photometry of the outbursting black hole candidate XTE J1118+480 (ATEL #383) was obtained with the European Space Agency, 1-m OGS telescope at the Spanish Observatorio del Teide (Tenerife) from 2005 Jan 21.01 to Jan 26.30. The average R-band magnitude displays a linear decay with a rate

We present measurements of the K I λ 7699 line from spectra of 19 late-type members of the αPersei cluster obtained with the Intermediate Dispersion Spectrograph at the Isaac Newton Telescope. These stars span a narrow range of Teff, from 5091 K to 4771 K, and a wide range of v sin i values (9 km s-1-170 km s-1). For a given star, we find