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In the last years, a new generation of large-scale imaging surveys have probed wide field regions around some nearby galaxies at unprecedented low surface brightness regime (~28.0-29.0 mag arcsec^-2). This offers a chance of discovering…

Using data taken as part of the Isaac Newton Telescope Wide Field Camera (INT WFC) survey of M31, we have identified an arc-like overdensity of blue, presumably metal-poor, red giant branch stars in the north-west quadrant of M31. This…

The highly anisotropic distribution and apparent alignment of the Galactic satellites in polar great planes begs the question how common such distributions are. The satellite system of M31 is the only nearby system for which we currently…

M31 has a giant stream of stars extending far to the south and a great deal of other tidal debris in its halo, much of which is thought to be directly associated with the southern stream. We model this structure by means of Bayesian…

We present a spectroscopic survey of the giant stellar stream found in the halo of the Andromeda galaxy. Taken with the DEIMOS multi-object spectrograph on the Keck2 telescope, these data display a narrow velocity dispersion of 11+/-3 km/s,…

We present the obliquity measurement, that is, the angle between the normal angle of the orbital plane and the stellar spin axis, of the sub-Neptune planet HD3167 c, which transits a bright nearby K0 star. We study the orbital architecture…

In hierarchical cosmological models, galaxies grow in mass through the continual accretion of smaller ones. The tidal disruption of these systems is expected to result in loosely bound stars surrounding the galaxy, at distances that reach…

We attempt to understand the planes of satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way (MW) and M31 in the context of Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), which implies a close MW-M31 flyby occurred ${\approx 8}$ Gyr ago. Using the timing…

We report the results of a preliminary nova survey of Local Group dwarf ellipticals. We used the Tenagra Observatory to observe M32, NGC 205, NGC 147, and NGC 185 in their entirety every clear night over a 4.5 month interval and discovered…

We present an analysis of the dynamics of the M31 satellite system. Proper motion data exist for only two of the M31 satellites. We account for this incompleteness in velocity data by a statistical analysis using a combination of the timing…

M-dwarf stars are promising targets for identifying and characterizing potentially habitable planets. K2-3 is a nearby (45 pc), early-type M dwarf hosting three small transiting planets, the outermost of which orbits close to the inner edge…

The Andromeda galaxy (M31) is the most nearby giant spiral galaxy, an opportunity to study with high resolution dynamical phenomena occurring in nuclear disks and bulges, able to explain star formation quenching, and galaxy evolution…

We have obtained deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging of four faint and ultra-faint dwarf galaxy candidates in the vicinity of M101 - Dw21, Dw22, Dw23 and Dw35, originally discovered by Bennet et al. (2017). Previous distance estimates…

[abridged] We carry out numerical simulations to gauge the Gaia potential for precision astrometry of exoplanets orbiting a sample of known dM stars within 30 pc from the Sun. (1) It will be possible to accurately determine orbits and…

We derive the structural parameters of the recently discovered very low luminosity Milky Way satellites through a Maximum Likelihood algorithm applied to SDSS data. For each satellite, even when only a few tens of stars are available down…

The satellite systems of M31 and the Galaxy are compared. It is noted that all five of the suspected stripped dSph cores of M31 companions are located within a projected distance of 40 kpc of from the nucleus of this galaxy, whereas the…

(abridged) The Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda (M31) galaxies possess rotating planes of satellites. Their formation has not been explained satisfactorily yet. It was suggested that the MW and M31 satellites are ancient tidal dwarf galaxies,…

The Milky Way (MW) dwarf spheroidal (dSph) satellites are known to be the most dark-matter (DM) dominated galaxies with estimates of dark to baryonic matter reaching even above one hundred. It comes from the assumption that dwarfs are…

We report results from a systematic wide-area search for faint dwarf galaxies at heliocentric distances from 0.3 to 2 Mpc using the full six years of data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Unlike previous searches over the DES data, this…

In this paper we discuss the photometric and spectroscopic observations of newly discovered (symbiotic) systems in the dwarf spheroidal galaxy NGC 205. The Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph on-off band [O III] 5007 A emission imaging…