We present surface photometry and stellar kinematics of a sample of five SB0 galaxies: ESO 139-G009, IC 874, NGC 1308, NGC 1440 and NGC 3412. We measured their bar pattern speed using the Tremaine-Weinberg method, and derived the ratio, , of the corotation radius to the length of the bar semimajor axis. For all the galaxies, is consistent with

We present Fabry-Perot and multi-object spectroscopy of the galaxies in Hickson compact group 31 (HCG 31). Based upon our Hα data cubes, galaxies A and C are a single entity, showing no discontinuity in their kinematics. Kinematically, galaxy E is probably a component of the A+C complex; otherwise it is a recently detached fragment. Galaxy F

We use Hubble Space Telescope (HST) near-infrared imaging to explore the shapes of the surface brightness profiles of bulges of S0-Sbc galaxies at high resolution. Modeling extends to the outer bulge via bulge-disk decompositions of combined HST-ground-based profiles. Compact, central unresolved components similar to those reported by others are

We present the results of high time resolution optical photometry of five quiescent soft X-ray transients (SXTs): V404 Cyg, A0620-00, J0422+32, GS 2000+25, and Cen X-4. We detect fast optical variations superposed on the secondary star's double-humped ellipsoidal modulation. The variability resembles typical flare activity and has amplitudes

We study a recently observed gravitational microlensing peak in the V-band light curve of Q2237+0305A using a relatively simple physical model, but one that is highly consistent with the data (the best-fit reduced chi 2 is very close to 1). The source quasar is assumed to be a Newtonian geometrically-thin and optically-thick accretion disk. The

The determination of the fundamental cosmological parameters has achieved dramatic progress over the past few years. Using Cepheids and secondary distance indicators, the expansion rate of the Universe is constrained to H0 = 60-75 km s-1 Mpc-1. More stringent constraints can be expected from independent determinations based on the Sunyaev-Ze'dovich