Related papers: Exploring the Interstellar Medium Using an Asymmet…
Swift J1357.2-0933 is one of the shortest orbital period black hole X-ray transients (BHTs). It exhibited deep optical dips together with an extremely broad H$\alpha$ line during outburst. We present 10.4-m GTC time-resolved spectroscopy…
Interstellar abundance determinations from fits to X-ray absorption edges often rely on the incorrect assumption that scattering is insignificant and can be ignored. We show instead that scattering contributes significantly to the…
Properties of the X-ray halo of the eclipsing X-ray pulsar 4U 1538-52 are derived from a 25 ksec observation by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Profiles of the halo, compiled in two energy ranges, 2 to 4 keV and 4 to 6 keV, and three time…
We present results from a mini-survey of dust spectral features arising in galaxies at redshifts $0.5 < z < 1.2$ in our James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) mid-infrared spectra of physically-unrelated background quasars. We analyze the JWST…
We present multiple-epoch measurements of the size and surface brightness of the light echoes from supernova (SN) 2014J in the nearby starburst galaxy M82. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) ACS/WFC images were taken ~277 and ~416 days after…
We present HST/WFPC2 images in Halpha+[NII]6548,6583 lines and continuum radiation and a VLA map at 8 GHz of the H2O gigamaser galaxy TXS2226-184. This galaxy has the most luminous H2O maser emission known to date. Our red continuum images…
We present a multi-wavelength analysis of the very fast X-ray transient MAXI J0158-744, which was detected by MAXI/GSC on 2011 November 11. The subsequent exponential decline of the X-ray flux was followed with Swift observations, all of…
We present a model for the diffuse interstellar dust that explains the observed wavelength-dependence of extinction, emission, linear and circular polarisation of light. The model is set-up with a small number of parameters. It consists of…
We present a three-dimensional map of the hydrogen density distribution in the Galactic interstellar medium. The hydrogen equivalent column densities were obtained from the Exploring the X-ray Transient and variable Sky project ({\sc…
We present an all sky map of the diffuse Galactic far ultraviolet (1344-1786 Angstroms) background using GALEX data, covering 65% of the sky with 11.79 arcmin square pixels. We investigate the dependence of the background on Galactic…
In this work we analyze the mass distribution of MACSJ1206.2-0847, especially focusing on the halo properties of its cluster members. The cluster appears relaxed in its X-ray emission, but has significant amounts of intracluster light which…
Small angle scattering by dust grains causes a significant contribution to the total interstellar extinction for any X-ray instrument with sub-arcminute resolution (Chandra, Swift, XMM-Newton). However, the dust scattering component is not…
We present a detailed NIR/optical/UV study of the transient low mass X-ray binary 1RXS J180408.9-342058 performed during its 2015 outburst, aimed at determining the nature of its companion star. We obtained three optical spectra at the 2.1…
Scattering by interstellar dust grains can produce time variable X-ray halos around gamma-ray bursts (GRB). In particular, an X-ray expanding ring is expected when a short pulse of X-ray radiation is scattered by a narrow layer of dust in…
We introduce a new maximum likelihood method to model the density profile of Blue Horizontal Branch and Blue Straggler stars and apply it to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 8 (DR8) photometric catalogue. There are a large number…
The X-ray transient XMMU J174716.1-281048 was serendipitously discovered with XMM-Newton in 2003. It lies about 0.9 degrees off the Galactic Centre and its spectrum shows a high absorption (~8 x 10E22 cm^(-2)). Previous X-ray observations…
We have studied the dust along the line-of-sight towards the Galactic Center using Short Wavelength Spectrometer (SWS) data obtained with the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). We focussed on the wavelength region from 8-13 micron which is…
We present time-resolved optical spectroscopy of the counterpart to the high-inclination black hole low-mass X-ray binary Swift J1357.2-0933 in quiescence. Absorption features from the mass donor star were not detected. Instead the spectra…
Supergiant fast X-ray transients are a new class of high mass X-ray binaries recently discovered with INTEGRAL. Hours long outbursts from these sources have been observed on numerous occasions at luminosities of ~1E36-1E37 erg/s, whereas…
We present 20 epochs of optical spectroscopy obtained with the GTC-10.4m telescope across the bright discovery outburst of the black hole candidate Swift J1727.8-162. The spectra cover the main accretion states and are characterised by the…