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The detailed chemical composition of most metal-poor halo stars has been found to be highly uniform, but a minority of stars exhibit dramatic enhancements in their abundances of heavy neutron-capture elements and/or of carbon. The key…

Shaping axi-symmetric planetary nebulae is easier if a companion interacts with a primary at the top of the asymptotic giant branch. To determine the impact of binarity on planetary nebula formation and shaping, we need to determine the…

[ABRIDGED] We present the results of a 3 year monitoring program of a sample of very low mass (VLM) field binaries using both astrometric and spectroscopic data obtained in conjunction with the laser guide star adaptive optics system on the…

SAX J1818.6-1703 is a flaring transient X-ray source serendipitously discovered by BeppoSAX in 1998 during an observation of the Galactic centre. The source was identified as a High-Mass X-ray Binary with an OB SuperGiant companion.…

The peculiar low mass X-ray binary XSSJ12270-4859, associated with the Fermi/LAT source 2FGLJ1227.7-4853, was in a X-ray, gamma-ray and optical low-luminosity persistent state for about a decade until the end of 2012, when it has entered…

LS I +61 303 is an exceptionally rare example of a high mass X-ray binary (HMXB) that also exhibits MeV-TeV emission, making it one of only a handful of "gamma-ray binaries". Here we present H-alpha spectra that show strong variability…

SAX J2103.5+4545 is the Be/X-ray binary with the shortest orbital period. It shows extended bright and faint X-ray states that last for a few hundred days. The main objective of this work is to investigate the relationship between the X-ray…

(Abridged). The cataclysmic binary V405 Peg, originally discovered as ROSAT Bright Source (RBS) 1955 (= 1RXS J230949.6+213523), shows a strong contribution from a late-type secondary star in its optical spectrum, which led Schwope et al. to…

We report optical and X-ray observations of the high-field polar RXJ1007.5-2017 performed between 1990 and 2012. It has an orbital period of 208.60 min determined from the ellipsoidal modulation of the secondary star in an extended low…

We present infrared spectroscopy of the low-mass X-ray binary GX 1+4/V2116 Oph. This symbiotic binary consists of a 2-min accretion-powered pulsar and an M5 III red giant. A strong He I 1.083 micron emission line with a pronounced P Cygni…

We present the orbital and physical parameters of a newly discovered low-mass detached eclipsing binary from the All-Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) database: ASAS J011328-3821.1 A - a member of a visual binary system with the secondary…

Reliable determination of the basic physical properties of hot emission-line binaries with Roche-lobe filling secondaries is important for developing the theory of mass exchange in binaries. It is not easy, however, due to the presence of…

To confirm faint Be/X-ray binary candidates from the XMM-Newton survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud, we searched for X-ray outbursts in archival ROSAT observations. We found that RXJ0123.4-7321 was much brighter when detected with ROSAT…

We present the results of a long term orbit monitoring program, using sparse aperture masking observations taken with NIRC2 on the Keck-II telescope, of seven G to M-type members of the Upper Scorpius subgroup of the Sco-Cen OB association.…

We report high-resolution spectroscopic observations of the young star HD 34700, which confirm it to be a double-lined spectroscopic binary. We derive an accurate orbital solution with a period of 23.4877 +/- 0.0013 days and an eccentricity…

The relatively small family of ultra-compact X-ray binary systems is of great interest for many areas of astrophysics. We report on a detailed X-ray spectral study of the persistent neutron star low mass X-ray binary 1RXS J170854.4-321857.…

We present preliminary results of the first and on-going radial velocity survey for circumbinary planets. With a novel radial velocity technique employing an iodine absorption cell we achieve an unprecedented RV precision of up to 2 m/s for…

The Fermi $\gamma$-ray source 1FGL J1417.7--4407 (J1417) is a compact X-ray binary with a neutron star primary and a red giant companion in a $\sim$5.4 day orbit. This initial conclusion, based on optical and X-ray data, was confirmed when…

High-resolution spectroscopy and speckle interferometry reveal the young star HD 86588 as a quadruple system with a 3-tier hierarchy. The 0.3" resolved binary A,B with an estimated period around 300 years contains the 8-year pair Aa,Abc…

We obtained multi-epoch Very Large Telescope (VLT) optical spectroscopic data in 2011 and 2012 on the ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) NGC 5408 X-1. We confirm that the HeII\lambda4686 line has a broad component with an average FWHM of…