We mapped the NH3 (1,1), (2,2), and (3,3) lines of the molecular cloud associated with the Monkey Head Nebula (MHN) with 1′.6 angular resolution using Kashima 34 m telescope. Its kinetic temperature distribution was contrary to what is expected for a molecular cloud at the edge of an expanding H II region and suggested that the massive star associated with S252A compact HII region formed spontaneously rather than through a sequential process.

In this report we have presented results of spectral observations of classical T Tauri type stars T Tau and RY Tau. Observational dates were obtained from following sources: spectrograms of the UV range from the IUE archive data, and spectrograms of the visual range obtained in the 2 m telescope of ShAO of the NAS of Azerbaijan (Ismailov et al. 2010). For both of stars on the Scargle method we have searched a periodicity of variations in equivalent widths of emission lines in the optical and UV ranges. In the RY Tau firstly was detected the periodic variability in MgII λ2800 Å emission doublet intensities with a period of 23 days. The observed period had also revealed with the equivalent widths and displacements of components of Hα and H+Hϵ and K CaII emission.

The lines were found to be shifted to short wavelengths as the emission line intensities increased in both UV and optical spectral ranges. The lack of a correlation between the brightness variation and the emission line intensity also suggests that, on the whole, the contribution from the radiation in emission lines for the star RY Tau is insignificant.

On the analysis of T Tau we conclude that there is a significant variation of spectral emission lines in the optical and UV on a time scale of about 33 days and that this variations is periodic. Both of stars shows the periodicity also for observed group of such lines as CIV λ1450 Å, HeII λ 1640 Å, SII λ1756 Å (Ismailov et al. 2010, Ismailov et al. 2011).

Additionally we have carried out spectral energy distributions of this stars in the range 0.36-100 μm which have indicated the excess of spectral radiation in the IR range of spectrum. These excesses of radiations can be explained by the thermal radiation of still unformed bodies at the circumstellar environment. The periodic variability in the spectrum together with the excess of the spectral radiation may be occurred by protoplanets and/or protostars in these young systems. It is showed that possible, planet formation processes mainly to be completed at the time of the formation of classical T Tauri type stars.

The massive amount of data produced by the recent multi-wavelength large-area surveys has spurred the growth of unprecedentedly massive and complex astronomical datasets that are proving the traditional data analysis techniques more and more inadequate. Knowledge discovery techniques, while relatively new to astronomy, have been successfully applied in several other quantitative disciplines for the determination of patterns in extremely complex datasets. The concerted use of different unsupervised and supervised machine learning techniques, in particular, can be a powerful approach to answer specific questions involving high-dimensional datasets and degenerate observables. In this paper I will present CLaSPS, a data-driven methodology for the discovery of patterns in high-dimensional astronomical datasets based on the combination of clustering techniques and pattern recognition algorithms. I shall also describe the result of the application of CLaSPS to a sample of a peculiar class of AGNs, the blazars.

The question of the origin of the gas supplying the accretion process is pertinent especially in the context of enhanced activity of Galactic Center during the past few hundred years, seen now as echo from the surrounding molecular clouds, and the currently observed new cloud approaching Sgr A*. We discuss the so-called Galactic Center mini-spiral as a possible source of material feeding the supermassive black hole on a 0.1 parsec scale. The collisions between individual clumps reduce their angular momentum. and set some of the clumps on a plunging trajectory.

We conclude that the amount of material contained in the mini-spiral is sufficient to sustain the luminosity of Sgr A* at the required level. The accretion episodes of relatively dense gas from the mini-spiral passing through a transient ring mode at ~ 104 Rg provide a viable scenario for the bright phase of Galactic Center.

We present results of our world-wide observing campaign which was dedicated to one of the most active dwarf novae, IX Draconis. We investigated photometric behaviour of the system to derive its basic parameters. This study is important in the context of our understanding of the accretion process of IX Draconis, as well as other active cataclysmic variables, especially those from the still poorly studied type of ER UMa stars.

Convective turbulent motions in the solar interior, as well as the mean flows resulting from them, determine the evolution of the solar magnetic field. With the aim to get a better understanding of these flows we study anelastic rotating convection in a spherical shell whose stratification resembles that of the solar interior. This study is done through numerical simulations performed with the EULAG code. Due to the numerical formulation, these simulations are known as implicit large eddy simulations (ILES), since they intrinsically capture the contribution of, non-resolved, small scales at the same time maximizing the effective Reynolds number. We reproduce some previous results and find a transition between buoyancy and rotation dominated regimes which results in anti-solar or solar like rotation patterns. Even thought the rotation profiles are dominated by Taylor-Proudman columnar rotation, we are able to reproduce the tachocline and a low latitude near-surface shear layer. We find that simulations results depend on the grid resolution as a consequence of a different sub-grid scale contribution.

Early-type dwarf galaxies are often thought to be either more diffuse versions of giant ellipticals or to be low-mass disk galaxies that were quenched and heated by the environment. In both cases, the picture that most astronomers have in mind probably is that of a dynamically hot, regular shaped galaxy, in which any previous substructure has either been smeared out, or has never been there. However, the early-type dwarfs are not that simple.

We analyzed ~100 such objects in the Virgo cluster using deep near-infrared images and found that the majority has a multi-component structure, sometimes even with bars or lenses. The study was done by applying GALFIT to images from the SMAKCED collaboration (Stellar content, MAss and K inematics of Cluster Early-type Dwarfs, http://www.smakced.net). The sample comprises early-type galaxies in the Virgo cluster in a brightness range of −19 ≤ Mr ≤ −16 mag, and the data is complete down to Mr=−16.73 mag. The images typically reach a signal-to-noise ratio of 1 per pixel of ~0.25” at a surface brightness of ~22.5 mag/arcsec2 in the H-band. The galaxies were fitted with two-dimensional models, either with a simple Sérsic model or inner and outer components, as well as bars and lenses. Only a fraction of 31% of the galaxies can be fitted with a single Sérsic function. This fraction of “simple“ galaxies turns out to be a strong function of luminosity, with a smaller fraction for brighter objects. The bar fraction is 14% and also in 14% of the galaxies lenses were fitted.

When comparing the flattening distribution, the early-type dwarfs are more similar to spiral galaxies than to elliptical or lenticular galaxies. It is disputable whether or not the dwarfs follow a common relation with the bright elliptical galaxies, e.g. in the brightness versus size diagram. At the same time, they appear as smooth continuation of bright late-type galaxies in this diagram. The inner and outer components, as well as the simple galaxies have similar flattening distributions. The inner components are mostly fitted with Sérsic-n values close to~1, i.e. with nearly exponential profiles. We argue that the inner components in the early-type dwarfs are not be bulges but may form parts of the disks, in which the matter was re-distributed during the transformation process from a late-type progenitor.

A standard format for recording skyglow measurements is needed to allow for effective data exchange. A proposal for such a format was discussed at the IAU Symposium.

Recent targeted studies of associated H i absorption in radio galaxies are starting to map out the location, and potential cosmological evolution, of the cold gas in the host galaxies of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). The observed 21 cm absorption profiles often show two distinct spectral-line components: narrow, deep lines arising from cold gas in the extended disc of the galaxy, and broad, shallow lines from cold gas close to the AGN (e.g. Morganti et al. 2011). Here, we present results from a targeted search for associated H i absorption in the youngest and most recently-triggered radio AGN in the local universe (Allison et al. 2012b). So far, by using the recently commissioned Australia Telescope Compact Array Broadband Backend (CABB; Wilson et al. 2011), we have detected two new absorbers and one previously-known system. While two of these show both a broad, shallow component and a narrow, deep component (see Fig. 1), one of the new detections has only a single broad, shallow component. Interestingly, the host galaxies of the first two detections are classified as gas-rich spirals, while the latter is an early-type galaxy. These detections were obtained using a spectral-line finding method, based on Bayesian inference, developed for future large-scale absorption surveys (Allison et al. 2012a).

Gaia's five-year observation baseline might naively lead to the expectation that it will be possible to fit the parallax of any sufficiently nearby object with the default five-parameter model (position at a reference epoch, parallax and proper motion). However, simulated Gaia observations of a ‘model Universe’ composed of nearly 107 objects, 50% of which turn out to be multiple stars, show that the single-star hypothesis can severely affect parallax estimation and that more sophisticated models must be adopted. In principle, screening these spurious single-star solutions is rather straightforward, for example by evaluating the quality of the fits. However, the simulated Gaia observations also reveal that some seemingly acceptable single-star solutions can nonetheless lead to erroneous distances. These solutions turn out to be binaries with an orbital period close to one year. Without auxiliary (e.g., spectroscopic) data, they will remain unnoticed.

Future prospects in observational galaxy evolution are reviewed from a personal perspective. New insights will especially come from high-redshift integral field kinematic data and similar low-redshift observations in very large and definitive surveys. We will start to systematically probe the mass structures of galaxies and their haloes via lensing from new imaging surveys and upcoming near-IR spectroscopic surveys will finally obtain large numbers of rest frame optical spectra at high-redshift routinely. ALMA will be an important new ingredient, spatially resolving the molecular gas fuelling the high star-formation rates seen in the early Universe.

The Herschel/HIFI absorption spectroscopy surveys reveal the unexpected molecular richness of the Galactic diffuse ISM, even in gas of very low average H2 molecular fraction. In particular, two hydrides, CH+ and SH+ with highly endoergic formation routes have abundances that challenge models of UV-driven chemistry. The intermittent dissipation of turbulence appears as a plausible additional source of energy for the diffuse ISM chemistry. We present recent results of the so-called models of Turbulent Dissipation Regions (TDR). The abundances of many of the molecules observed in the diffuse ISM, including CO that is used as a tracer of the molecular cloud mass, may be understood in the framework of the TDR models.

More than 20000 observations of Near Earth asteroids and comets are collected and reduced in Pulkovo Observatory during last 10 years. For observations of these objects two robotic telescopes are used – ZA-320M (Cassegrain system, D = 320 mm, F = 3200 mm) at Pulkovo and MTM-500M (Maksutov – Cassegrain system, D = 500 mm, F = 4100 mm) at Kislovodsk mountain station. These telescopes perform CCD observations of objects up to 18.0 and 20.5 magnitude, correspondingly. The results of observations are regularly submitted to Minor Planet Center.

We consider twin-peak quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) observed in the accreting low-mass neutron star (NS) binaries and explore restrictions to NS properties that are implied by various QPO models. For each model and each source, the consideration results in a specific relation between the NS mass M and the angular-momentum j rather than in their single preferred combination. Furthermore, the inferred restrictions on NS properties (or QPO models) are weaker for the low-frequency sources than for the high-frequency sources.

The physical and chemical evolution of galaxies is intimately linked to star formation, We present evidence that molecular gas (H2) is transformed into stars more quickly in smaller and/or subsolar metallicity galaxies than in large spirals – which we consider to be equivalent to a star formation efficiency (SFE). In particular, we show that this is not due to uncertainties in the N(H2)/Ico conversion factor. Several possible reasons for the high SFE in galaxies like the nearby M33 or NGC 6822 are proposed which, separately or together, are the likely cause of the high SFE in this environment. We then try to estimate how much this could contribute to the increase in cosmic star formation rate density from z = 0 to z = 1.

Much of our knowledge about the solar dynamo is based on sunspot observations. It is thus desirable to extend the set of positional and morphological data of sunspots into the past. Gustav Spörer observed in Germany from Anklam (1861–1873) and Potsdam (1874–1894). He left detailed prints of sunspot groups, which we digitized and processed to mitigate artifacts left in the print by the passage of time. After careful geometrical correction, the sunspot data are now available as synoptic charts for almost 450 solar rotation periods. Individual sunspot positions can thus be precisely determined and spot areas can be accurately measured using morphological image processing techniques. These methods also allow us to determine tilt angles of active regions (Joy's law) and to assess the complexity of an active region.

The inner workings of pulsar magnetospheres have fascinated and confused researchers since the discovery of pulsars. I will review the status of magnetospheric models, including vacuum, space-charge-limited and resistive force-free MHD. I will highlight model predictions for the integrated pulsar quantities (such as spin down and torques) and the observational consequences of calculated magnetic field structure. Particularly, high-energy emission from pulsars allows putting new constraints on the geometry of the emission region and the physics of particle acceleration in the magnetosphere.