Related papers: Improved Baade-Wesselink surface-brightness relati…
We study the relative dust attenuation-inclination relation in 78,721 nearby galaxies using the axis ratio dependence of optical-NIR colour, as measured by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), and the…
We present the analysis of MOA-2007-BLG-197Lb, the first brown dwarf companion to a Sun-like star detected through gravitational microlensing. The event was alerted and followed-up photometrically by a network of telescopes from the PLANET,…
From near-infrared, narrow-band photometry of 256 oxygen-rich Mira variables we obtain evidence about the loops that these stars follow in colour-colour diagrams. We also find a phase lag between indices related to molecular band-strength…
The ISOGAL mid-infrared survey of areas close to the Galactic Plane aims to determine their stellar content and its possible bearing on the history of the Galaxy. The NGC6522 and Sgr I Baade's Windows of low obscuration towards the inner…
Recently available near-infrared interferometric data on late-type stars show a strong increase of diameter for asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars between the K (2.0 - 2.4 \mu m) and L (3.4 - 4.1 \mu m) bands. Aiming at an explanation of…
We study the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) continuum slopes ($\beta$) of galaxies at redshifts $8 < z < 16$, using a combination of JWST ERO and ERS NIRcam imaging and ground-based near-infrared imaging of the COSMOS field. The combination of…
New near-infrared observations of NGC6528 are presented. The JHK observations complement a previous HST/NICMOS data set by Ortolani et al. (2001), in that they sample a larger area, contain a more numerous sample of red giant stars, and…
We discuss the wavelength dependence of angular diameters of M giants from an observational perspective. Observers cannot directly measure an optical-depth radius for a star, despite this being a common theoretical definition. Instead, they…
The estimate of stellar metallicities (Z*) of high-z galaxies are of paramount importance in order to understand the complexity of dust effects and the reciprocal interrelations among stellar mass, dust attenuation, stellar age, and…
Low-resolution LAMOST and Keck spectra of blue supergiant stars distributed over the disks of the Local Group spiral galaxies M 31 and M 33 are analyzed to determine stellar effective temperatures, gravities, metallicities, and reddening.…
We investigate star forming scaling relations using Bayesian inference on a comprehensive data sample of low- (z<0.1) and high-redshift (1<z<5) star forming regions. This full data set spans a wide range of host galaxy stellar mass ($M_{*}…
Determining the Galactic distribution and numbers of massive stars, such as Wolf-Rayet stars (WRs), is hampered by intervening Galactic or local circumstellar dust obscuration. In order to probe such regions of the Galaxy we can use…
Evidence is building that remnants of solar systems might orbit a large percentage of white dwarfs, as the polluted atmospheres of DAZ and DBZ white dwarfs indicate the very recent accretion of metal-rich material. (Zuckerman et al. 2010).…
WIMPs can be captured in compact stars such as white dwarves (WDs) leading to an increase in the star luminosity through their annihilation process. We show that when the WIMP interacts with the nuclear targets within the WD through…
We present a homogeneous metallicity analysis of old stellar populations in Local Volume (LV) galaxies using data from the CMDs/TRGB catalog of the Extragalactic Distance Database (EDD; http://edd.ifa.hawaii.edu), which provides uniformly…
The kinematical parameters of the local field RR Lyrae population and the zero point of the log P--<M_K> relation for these variables are inferred by applying the statistical parallax (maximum-likelihood) technique to a sample of 182 RR…
We analyze a high-resolution spectrum of a microlensed G-dwarf in the Galactic bulge, acquired when the star was magnified by a factor of 110. We measure a spectroscopic temperature, derived from the wings of the Balmer lines, that is the…
This thesis focuses on the statistical properties of wide binary (WB) star systems in the Galactic field. For the present study we select a homogeneous sample covering about 675 square degrees in the direction of the NGP. It contains nearly…
BA-type supergiants show a high potential as versatile indicators for modern astronomy. The focus here is on the determination of accurate and precise atmospheric parameters for a sample of 35 Galactic BA-type supergiants. Some first…
We present improved visual and near-infrared empirical mass-luminosity relations for very low mass stars (M$<$0.6~\Msol). These relations make use of all stellar masses in this range known with better than 10% accuracy, most of which are…