Related papers: A Luminous Companion to SGR 1806-20

The southern emission-line star HD 144432 has received considerable attention due to its relative brightness (V ~ 8.17), its late spectral type (late A-type or perhaps early F) and its relative isolation from a bona-fide active star…

We use the very simple and successful Cannonball (CB) model of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows (AGs) to analyze the observations of the mildly extinct optical AG of the relatively nearby GRB 020405. We show that GRB 020405 was…

We have observed with the BeppoSAX satellite the quiescent counterpart of the Soft Gamma-ray Repeater SGR 1806-20. Observations performed in October 1998 and in March 1999 showed that this pulsar continued its long term spin-down trend at…

I review some recent developments in our understanding of the environments of soft gamma-ray repeaters. I pay particular attention to the apparent association betwwen SGR 1900+14 and SGR 1806-20 and embedded clusters of stars.

Thanks to INTEGRAL's long exposures of the Galactic Plane, the two brightest Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters, SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14, have been monitored and studied in detail for the first time at hard-X/soft gamma rays. This has produced a…

We report the Swift discovery of nearby long, soft gamma-ray burst GRB 100316D, and the subsequent unveiling of its low redshift host galaxy and associated supernova. We derive the redshift of the event to be z = 0.0591 +/- 0.0001 and…

In this series of papers we have presented the results of a spectroscopic survey of luminous and variable stars in the nearby spirals M31 and M33. In this paper, we present spectroscopy of 132 additional luminous stars, variables, and…

We here present the spectroscopic follow-up observations with VLT/X-shooter of the Swift long-duration gamma-ray burst GRB 160804A at z = 0.737. Typically, GRBs are found in low-mass, metal-poor galaxies which constitute the sub-luminous…

We report the discovery of the first known symbiotic star in IC10, a starburst galaxy belonging to the Local Group, at a distance of ~750kpc. The symbiotic star was identified during a survey of emission-line objects. It shines at V =…

We present optical and near-IR identification and spectroscopy of the host galaxy of GRB 980613. The burst was apparently associated with the optically (restframe UV) brightest component of a system of at least five galaxies or galaxy…

We present deep HST/STIS and ground-based photometry of the host galaxy of the gamma-ray burst GRB 980703 taken 17, 551, 710, and 716 days after the burst. We find that the host is a blue, slightly over-luminous galaxy with V_gal = 23.00…

PSR J1306--40 is a millisecond pulsar binary with a non-degenerate companion in an unusually long $\sim$1.097 day orbit. We present new optical photometry and spectroscopy of this system, and model these data to constrain fundamental…

We report on the identification of the optical/IR counterpart of the 29.5-s transient X-ray pulsar GS 1843+009. We re-analysed an archival ROSAT HRI observation of GS 1843+009, obtaining a new refined position. The optical and IR follow-up…

We report the discovery of LSR0602+3910, an L dwarf of class L1. The object was initially identified by Lepine et al. (2002) as a new high proper motion star lying close to the Galactic plane. Its 2MASS J-K_s=1.43 is consistent with an L…

The gamma ray burst (GRB) 980425 is distinctive in that it seems to be associated with supernova (SN) 1998bw, has no X-ray afterglow, and has a single peak light curve and a soft spectrum. The supernova is itself unusual in that its…

We report on multi-band (UBVRIZJsKs) observations of the host galaxy of the April 18, 2000 gamma-ray burst. The Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) is analysed by fitting empirical and synthetic spectral templates. We find that: (i) the best…

We present the first spectrum of the most luminous infrared star in M33, and use it to demonstrate that the object is almost certainly a binary composed of a massive O star and a dust-enshrouded Red Hypergiant. This is the most luminous…

The recently discovered gamma-ray binary 1FGL J1018.6-5856 has a proposed optical/near-infrared (OIR) counterpart 2MASS 10185560-5856459. We present Stromgren photometry of this star to investigate its photometric variability and measure…

Estimates indicate there may be $\simgreat 10^3$ low luminosity X-ray pulsars ($L \simless 10^{34} \rom{erg\;s^{-1}}$) in the Galaxy undergoing ``low-state'' wind accretion in Be/X-ray binary systems, and $\sim 10^8-10^9$ isolated neutron…

Thanks to INTEGRAL's long exposures of the Galactic Plane, the two brightest Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters, SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14, have been monitored and studied in detail for the first time at hard-X/soft-gamma rays. SGR 1806-20, lying…