Related papers: Extragalactic Stellar Astronomy with Blue Supergia…
One of the challenges for stellar astrophysics is to reach the point at which we can undertake reliable spectral synthesis of unresolved populations in young, star-forming galaxies at high redshift. Here I summarise recent studies of…
Stellar evolution theory is most uncertain for massive stars. For reliable predictions of the evolution of massive stars and their final fate, solid constraints on the physical parameters, and their changes along the evolution and in…
Observing the stars in our night sky tells us that giant, supergiant and hypergiant stars hold an unique importance in the understanding of stellar populations. Theoretical stellar models predict a rich tapestry of evolved stars. These…
The determination of chemical abundances in star-forming galaxies and the study of their evolution on cosmological timescales are powerful tools for understanding galaxy formation and evolution. This contribution presents the latest results…
Valuable insights into galaxy evolution can be gleaned from studies of resolved stellar populations in the local Universe. Deep photometric surveys have provided tracers of the star-formation histories in galaxies from 0.8-16 Mpc, but…
We analyze {\sl Hubble Space Telescope} observations of nine Large Magellanic Cloud star clusters with ages of 1--2 Gyr to search for evolved counterparts of blue straggler stars. Near the red clump regions in the clusters' color--magnitude…
The study of extragalactic planetary nebulae (EPN) is a rapidly expanding field. The advent of powerful new instrumentation such as the PN spectrograph has led to an avalanche of new EPN discoveries both within and between galaxies. We now…
The determination of accurate chemical abundances of planetary nebulae (PN) in different galaxies allows us to obtain important constraints of chemical evolution models for these systems. We have a long term program to derive abundances in…
Observational manifestations of far evolved stars at the asymptotic giants branch and their nearest descendants are briefly considered. Main results of their chemical composition determinations based on long term high resolution…
We discuss the future possibilities for extragalactic star cluster research with the expected new ground-based and space-based telescopes and instrumentation. Significant gains are expected due to improved angular resolution, sensitivity,…
Owing to their extreme crowding and high and variable extinction, stars in the Galactic Bulge, within +-2 degrees of the Galactic plane, and especially those in the Nuclear Star Cluster, have only rarely been targeted for an analyses of…
The determination of chemical abundances from stellar spectra is considered a mature field of astrophysics. Digital spectra of stars are recorded and processed with standard techniques, much like samples in the biological sciences.…
Massive stars can develop into tepid supergiants at several stages of their post main-sequence evolution, prior to core He-burning, on a blue loop, or close to the final supernova explosion. We discuss observational constraints on models of…
The investigation of extragalactic Supernova Remnants (SNRs) gives us the advantage of surmounting the challenges we are usually confronted with when observing Galactic SNRs, most notably Galactic extinction and distance uncertainties. At…
Multi-object spectroscopic observations of blue supergiants in NGC 3621, a spiral galaxy at a distance of 6.7 Mpc, carried out with the ESO VLT and FORS are presented. We demonstrate the feasibility of quantitative stellar spectroscopy at…
The Galactic centre and its surrounding space are important in studying galaxy-scale evolution, and stellar populations therein are expected to have imprints of the long-term evolution. Interstellar extinction, however, severely limits…
Almost all massive stars explode as supernovae and form a black hole or neutron star. The remnant mass and the impact of the chemical yield on subsequent star formation and galactic evolution strongly depend on the internal physics of the…
Despite major progress in our understanding of massive stars, concerning discrepancies still remain between observations and theory. Most notable are the numerous stars observed beyond the theoretical main sequence, an evolutionary phase…
Chemical abundances provide important clues to the evolution of galaxies. Ionized nebulae are one of the main sources of chemical abundance measurements, especially in external galaxies. Studies of H II regions have shown that the overall…
The extragalactic background light (EBL) is of fundamental importance both for understanding the entire process of galaxy evolution and for gamma-ray astronomy. However, the overall spectrum of the EBL between 0.1 and 1000 microns has never…