A194 and A1060 are studied for the nature of point source properties. X-ray to optical luminosity ratios (Lx/Lb) are evaluated for selected galaxies. Cumulative log(N)-log(S) and intrinsic luminosity functions are applied for a comparative evaluation with Lockman Hole. 46 and 32 X-ray point sources are detected by EPIC-PN, for A194 and A1060 respectively. The XLF space density shows significant excess compared to field and local group space density. The result is interpreted as the fueling of AGNs as they enter the ICM from outskirts of the clusters and dimming of the very bright AGNs as they further proceed into cluster core.

If the standard disk-blackbody approximation is used to estimate black hole (BH) masses in ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs), the inferred masses are ∼ 1000 M⊙. However, we argue that such an approximation cannot be applied to ULXs, because their disks are only radiating a small fraction of the accretion power, and are therefore cooler than they would be in a thermal-dominant state, for a given BH mass. Instead, we suggest that a different phenomenological approximation should be used, based on three observable parameters: disk luminosity, peak temperature, and ratio between thermal and non-thermal emission. This method naturally predicts masses ∼ 50 M⊙, more consistent with other theoretical and observational constraints.

Observations of source regions of coronal mass ejections have progressed enormously in the past decade with the observations from SOHO and Yohkoh. Progress has been made on understanding magnetic helicity, coronal dimming, coronal waves and flares in terms of their relationship to CMEs. Observations have been used to verify and disagree with models such as tether-cutting, kink instabilities and the breakout model. We will describe the observations, recent models, and how future observations from the Solar-B and STEREO missions will address many unanswered questions.

A brief review is given of radio phenomena on the Sun, the planet Jupiter, and the interplanetary medium and its outer boundary. A brief aside is made to draw parallels between radio emission from Jupiter and extrasolar planets.

The Sc galaxy M 99 in the Virgo Cluster has been strongly affected by recent tidal interactions, responsible for an asymmetric spiral pattern and a high star formation rate (∼ 10 M⊙ yr−1). We studied the galaxy with XMM-Newton, Keck and the Very Large Array (VLA). The inner disk is dominated by hot plasma with a total X-ray luminosity ≈ 1041 erg s−1. At the outskirts of the galaxy, away from the main star-forming regions, there is an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) with an X-ray luminosity ≈ 2 × 1040 erg s−1 and a hard spectrum (power-law photon index Γ ≈ 1.7). This source is close to the location where a massive H I cloud appears to be falling onto the M 99 disk at a relative speed > 100 km s−1. The infalling gas may have been stripped from the nearby “dark galaxy” candidate VIRGOHI 21. We speculate there may be a relation between collisional events, infall of metal-poor gas clouds, and ULX formation.

The discovery of $\sim$500 planetary nebulae (PNe) in the bulge region allows us to probe the bulge out to $\sim8$ kpc. This opens up the possibility to track bulge-disc interactions to unprecedented details. We present an exploration of bulge dynamics with Nbody models of a triaxial bulge embedded in an exponential disc (Peyaud 2005).

Results of the last observations of solar sporadic radio emission at the UTR-2 radio telescope (Kharkov, Ukraine) at the frequencies 10 - 30 MHz are presented. The use of new backend facilities, the DSP and 60-channel spectrometer, allows us to obtain data with time resolution up to 2 ms and frequency resolution of 12 kHz in the continuous frequency band 12 MHz. Usual Type III bursts, Type IIIb bursts, U- and J-bursts in the decameter range are discussed. Special attention is paid to detection and analysis of Type II bursts and their properties, newly discovered fine time structures of Type III bursts, Type III-like bursts, s-bursts, new observational features of drift pair bursts, and ‘absorption’ bursts.

We summarize results from McDermid et al. (2006), who present a set of follow-up observations of the sauron representative survey of early-type galaxies. We used the oasis integral-field spectrograph (while at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope) to obtain high spatial resolution spectra of 28 elliptical and lenticular galaxies. These seeing-limited data have on average twice the spatial resolution of the sauron data, albeit over a smaller field. These new data reveal previously unresolved features in these objects' stellar kinematics, stellar populations, and ionized gas properties. In this contribution, we focus on the discovery of a population of compact kinematically decoupled cores in a number of our sample galaxies. These compact cores are related to regions of young stars, and counter-rotate around the host galaxy's minor axis. We compare these objects to previously known decoupled components, which in contrast are composed of old stars, and which rotate around axes unrelated to the host galaxy's kinematics or shape. A key difference between these two kinds of decoupled cores are their physical size and relative mass. The compact decoupled cores are smaller than a few hundred parsec, and constitute less than a few percent of the total galaxy mass. The ‘classical’ decoupled cores exist on kiloparsec scales, and comprise around a factor 10 more mass. We suggest that the small components are only found with young ages because of their low mass-to-light ratio. We show that after a few Gyrs, these components ‘fade’ into the background galaxy, making them more difficult to detect. We draw the following conclusions: 1) young stars found in early-type galaxies are very often associated with centrally-concentrated counter-rotating components; 2) the small mass fraction and kinematic decoupling of these cores suggests that the star formation is associated to minor accretion events, which effectively drive the spread in luminosity-weighted ages found in early-type galaxies; and 3) such decoupled components may be common in all early-type galaxies, but not directly observed due to their small contribution to the total galaxy light at older ages.

Wave and oscillatory activity of the solar corona is confidently observed with modern imaging and spectral instruments in the visible light, EUV, X-ray and radio bands, and interpreted in terms of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave theory. The review reflects the current trends in the observational study of coronal waves and oscillations, theoretical modelling of interaction of MHD waves with plasma structures, and implementation of the theoretical results for the mode identification. Also the use of MHD waves for remote diagnostics of coronal plasma - MHD coronal seismology – is discussed.

The H2O super maser outbursts were observed in Orion KL in active periods 1979-1987 (F ≤ 8 MJy) and 1998-1999 (F ≤ 4 MJy). The line velocity was VLSR = 7.65 km/s and line width ΔV ~ 0.5 km/s. The emission was linear polarized m ≤ 75%. We studied structure of H2O super maser region with VLBI angular resolution 0.1 mas or 0.05 AU. The emission was determined by high organized structure: a chain of bright (Tb ~ 1016K) compact components (~ 0.05 AU), which are distributed along thin S-form structure 27× 0.3 AU, Tb ~ 1011K, Fig. 1. The brightest components have velocities V ~ 7.65 km/s. The components correspond to tangential direction of the rings, velocities of which are V ~ ΩR and rotation period is ~180 yrs. The highly collimated bipolar outflow 9x0.7 AU and comet-like bullets were observed in the quiescent period 1995 (F= 1 kJy) and second activity period 1998-1999. The central compact (0.05 AU) bright (Tb ~ 1016K) source is ejector of bipolar outflow, which surrounded by a torus. Compact bright features are located in the outflow, which velocities are V ~ 10 km/s in the beginning of activity, and V ~ 3 km/s in the end. The helix structure of outflow is determined by precession with period T ~ 10 yrs. The bullets were ejected in the first period activity. Extraordinary changing of the polarization position angle dX/dV ~ 23o/km/s is determined by nozzle emission.

Interaction and merging are the two most important driving forces of galaxy evolution. In contrast to the well studied major mergers of two large gas-rich disk galaxies, which may lead to Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs, LFIR>1012 L⊙), mergers between galaxies of unequal mass or a spiral and an elliptical (S+E mergers) are still poorly understood. These moderate luminosity mergers typically have LFIR > 1011 L⊙. Here, we present the results of our multiwavelength study of a sample of such kind of mergers, including interferometric HI and single-dish CO observations, optical and near-infrared imaging as well as optical spectroscopy.

We present two-dimensional (2D) gas kinematics and excitation of the inner 300 pc of the Seyfert galaxy ESO428-G14 at a sampling of 14 pc2, from near-infrared spectroscopic observations at R=5900 obtained with the Integral Field Unit of the Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph. Blue-shifts of up to 400 km s−1 and velocity dispersions of up to 150 km s−1, are observed in association with the radio jet running from SE to NW along position angle 129°. Both X-rays emitted by the active galactic nucleus and shocks produced by the radio jet can excite the H2 and [Fe ii] emission lines. We use the 2D velocity dispersion maps we estimate upper limits of 90% to the contribution of the radio jet to the excitation of [Fe ii]λ1.257μm, and of 80% to the excitation of H2λ2.121μm in the jet region.

RNO91 is class II source currently in a transition phase between a protostar and a main-sequence star. It is known as a source of complex molecular outflows. Previous studies suggested that RNO91 was associated with a reflection nebula, a CO outflow, shock-excited H2 emission, and disk type structure. But the geometry of RNO91, especially its inner region, is not well confirmed yet. High resolution imaging is needed to understand the nature of RNO91 and its interaction with outflow. Thus, we conducted near-infrared imaging observations of RNO91 with the infrared camera CIAO mounted on the Subaru 8.2-m Telescope. We presented JHK band and optical images which resolved a complex asymmetrical circumstellar structure. We examined the color of RNO91 nebula and compared the geometry of the system suggested by our data with that already proposed on the basis of other studies. Our main results are as follows; 1. The K-band images show significant halo emission detected within ~2″ around the peak position while less halo emission is seen in shorter wavelength images such as J and optical. The nebula appears to become more circular and more diffuse with increasing wavelengths. The cut-off at 300AU derived from our radial surface brightness is consistent with the size of the polarization disk suggested by Draper & Tadhunter (1993). These consistencies indicate that this optically thick region is attributed to a disk-like structure.

2. At J and optical, several bluer knot-like structures are detected around and beyond the halo emission. These bluer knots seen in our images are comparable to the size of the envelope detected in HCO+ emission surrounding RNO91 (Lee & Ho 2005). It is thus natural to suggest that these bluer knots are the near-infrared light scattered by an envelope structure which is disrupted by molecular outflows.

3. The pseudo-true color composite image has an appearance of arc-shaped emission extending to the north and to the east through RNO91. On the counter part of this arc-shaped structure, the nebula appears to become more extended to the southwest from the central peak position in J band and optical images. We interpret these whole structures as a bottom of bipolar cavity seen relatively edge-on opening to the north and south directions.

We review what we have learnt about flares and prominences using multi-wavelength observations in the perspective of testing theoretical models.

The NRAO 43m telescope has been refurbished and begun regular observations in the frequency range 170 - 1700 MHz. The 43 m operations support a Bi-Static Radar Collaboration to measure the Earth's ionospheric turbulence. Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have designed and built a unique design wide-band feed, 150 - 1700 MHz. Lincoln Laboratories/MIT has packaged the feed with room temperature low noise amplifiers. Lincoln Laboratories has installed a high-dynamic range RF system together with a wide-band sampler system. The NRAO operates the 43 m telescope according to schedules authored by Lincoln Laboratories. Currently the 43 m telescope is tracking spacecraft 48 hr a week. The tracking antenna operation is completely automated. A group at MIT/Haystack have installed a second radar experiment at the 43 m as well as an array of 6 ‘discone’ antennas. Their experiment is testing the use of reflected FM radio stations as probes of the ionosphere.

The present study tries to identify the mechanism responsible for the hostility to star formation (SF) found in galaxies of dense environments. Among the several candidate mechanisms, the gas-rich merger of galaxies stands as a plausible option since the realisation that the AGN-feedback, which follows the merger, can deplete the gas and truncate the SF of the resulting spheroid. Our strategy is to look for traces of SF truncation in the elliptical galaxies of Hickson compact groups (HCGs), because these are the ideal environments for mergers to occur. The stellar populations of 22 elliptical galaxies in HCGs and 12 in the field are compared using three different SSP models and two different emission correction procedures. Along the study, an extensive use of the [Mg/Fe] abundance ratio is made, because it contains useful information on the timescale of the SF history of the galaxies. Systematic differences of [Mg/Fe] and [Z/H] between both galaxy subsamples (field and HCGs) suggest that SF truncation events have affected the intermediate-mass galaxies of the HCGs. Our interpretation is that when a field galaxy enters the dense HCG environment it merges with another galaxy and ends up as a passive elliptical with traces of SF truncation.

We report our discovery of 471 planetary nebulae (PNe) in the central 25~deg$^{2}$ region of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) following confirmatory two-degree Field (2dF) spectroscopy on the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT). Candidate emission sources were discovered using deep, high resolution UKST stacked Short Red (SR) and H$\alpha$ images which go deeper than any previously available. The two digitized stacks were then merged to reveal emission sources. The new PNe have implications for the LMC PN luminosity function, kinematics, abundance gradients, chemical evolution and the initial to final mass relation for low to intermediate mass stars via the AGB halos revealed on the H$\alpha$ map. Excitation classes are presented.

We have obtained high angular resolution spectra on the photometric axes of the stellar spheroid in the polar disk galaxy NGC4650A. We discuss the main implications by the new kinematics on the previous mass models for NGC4650A and on current formation scenarios of Polar Ring Galaxies (PRGs).

We present a study of 413 early-type dwarf (dE) galaxies in the Virgo Cluster with SDSS multicolour imaging. Several dE subclasses show systematic differences in shape, clustering properties, and stellar content. We find different colour-magnitude relations for nucleated and non-nucleated dEs, as well as for dE samples populating regions of different densities.

Coordinate-independent definition of the characteristic, so-called “humpy” frequency related to the positive gradient of the orbital velocity in locally non-rotating frames around nearly extreme Kerr black holes is given and compared with the epicyclic and orbital frequencies for both Keplerian thin discs and limiting marginally stable thick discs.