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This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited., This work presents the analysis of seven mutual events of the Patroclus–Menoetius system (PMS) observed during the last season of mutual events, in 2017–2018. We compare the obtained light curves with those predicted using Grundy et al. and discuss the differences in the timing of the events and the drop of magnitude. Based on models of these observations, we present a collection of orbital parameters that provide the best fit for the observed events and compare the new solutions for the orbit of the system with solutions provided in the literature. Furthermore, we also discuss an interesting finding in the light curve of the only superior event in our collection. This light curve (the one with the best signal-to-noise ratio in our data set) shows the imprint of a possible crater in the south pole of Menoetius as deep as a fourth of its radius. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society., his work is partially based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain, under Director's Discretionary Time. Partially based on observations obtained with the SARA Observatory 0.9 m telescope at Kitt Peak, which is owned and operated by the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy. This research is partially based on observations collected at Sierra Nevada Observatory (OSN) in Granada, Spain, which is operated by Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC). This article is based on observations made with the Carlos Sánchez Telescope located at the island of Tenerife and operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in the Spanish Observatorio del Teide. N.P.-A. and E.F.-V. acknowledge support from SRI/FSI funds through the project "Earth- and Space-Based Studies in Support of NASA Space Missions." M.P. acknowledges support from AYA2015-67772-R (MINECO, Spain). E.F.-V. acknowledges support from the 2017 Preeminent Postdoctoral Program (P3) of the University of Central Florida. R.D. acknowledges funding from Spanish project AYA2017-89637-R, from FEDER. We would like to acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the "Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía" (SEV-2017-0709). We are grateful to the OSN staff for the excellent work done during the observational campaigns.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited., We report on the characterization of the dust activity and dynamical evolution of two faint active asteroids, P/2019 A4, and P/2021 A5, observed with the 10.4 m GTC using both imaging and spectroscopy. Asteroid P/2019 A4 activity is found to be linked to an impulsive event occurring some ±10 d around perihelion, probably due to a collision or a rotational disruption. Its orbit is stable over 100 Myr time-scales. Dust tail models reveal a short-term burst producing (2.0 ± 0.7) × 106 kg of dust for maximum particle radius rmax = 1 cm. The spectrum of P/2019 A4 is featureless, and slightly redder than the Sun. P/2021 A5 was active ~50 d after perihelion, lasting ~5 to ~60 d, and ejecting (8 ± 2) × 106 kg of dust for rmax = 1 cm. The orbital simulations show that a few percent of dynamical clones of P/2021 A5 are unstable on 20-50 Myr time-scales. Thus, P/2021 A5 might be an implanted object from the JFC region or beyond. These facts point to water-ice sublimation as the activation mechanism. This object also displays a featureless spectrum, but slightly bluer than the Sun. Nuclei sizes are estimated in the few hundred meters range for both asteroids. Particle ejection speeds (≈0.2 m s-1) are consistent with escape speeds from those small-sized objects. © 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society., FM and DG acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the ‘Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa’ award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). FM and DG also acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica LEONIDAS project RTI2018-095330-B-100, and project P18-RT-1854 from Junta de Andalucía.

We report detection of PSR B0656$+$14 with the Gran Telescopio Canarias in narrow optical $F657$, $F754$, $F802$, and $F902$ and near-infrared $JHK_s$ bands. The pulsar detection in the $K_s$ band extends its spectrum to 2.2 $\mu$m and confirms its flux increase towards the infrared. We also present a thorough analysis of the optical spectrum obtained by us with the VLT. For a consistency check, we revised the pulsar near-infrared and narrow-band photometry obtained with the \textit{HST}. We find no narrow spectral lines in the optical spectrum. We compile available near-infrared-optical-UV and archival 0.3-20keV X-ray data and perform a self-consistent analysis of the rotation phase-integrated spectrum of the pulsar using unified spectral models. The spectrum is best fitted by the four-component model including two blackbodies, describing the thermal emission from the neutron star surface and its hot polar cap, the broken power-law, originating from the pulsar magnetosphere, and an absorption line near $\sim$0.5 keV detected previously. The fit provides better constraints on the model parameters than using only a single spectral domain. The derived surface temperature is $T_{NS}^{\infty}=7.9(3)\times10^5$K. The intrinsic radius (7.8-9.9 km) of the emitting region is smaller than a typical neutron star radius (13km) and suggests a nonuniform temperature distribution over the star surface. In contrast, the derived radius of the hot polar cap is about twice as large as the `canonical' one. The spectrum of the nonthermal emission steepens from the optical to X-rays and has a break near 0.1 keV. The X-ray data suggest the presence of another absorption line near 0.3keV., Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Full list of authors: Dhillon, V. S.; Bezawada, N.; Black, M.; Dixon, S. D.; Gamble, T.; Gao, X.; Henry, D. M.; Kerry, P.; Littlefair, S. P.; Lunney, D. W.; Marsh, T. R.; Miller, C.; Parsons, S. G.; Ashley, R. P.; Breedt, E.; Brown, A.; Dyer, M. J.; Green, M. J.; Pelisoli, I.; Sahman, D. I. Wild, J.; Ives, D. J.; Mehrgan, L.; Stegmeier, J.; Dubbeldam, C. M.; Morris, T. J.; Osborn, J.; Wilson, R. W.; Casares, J.; Muñoz-Darias, T.; Pallé, E.; Rodríguez-Gil, P.; Shahbaz, T.; Torres, M. A. P.; de Ugarte Postigo, A.; Cabrera-Lavers, A.; Corradi, R. L. M.; Domínguez, R. D.; García-Alvarez, D., HiPERCAM is a portable, quintuple-beam optical imager that saw first light on the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) in 2018. The instrument uses re-imaging optics and four dichroic beamsplitters to record us, gs, rs, is, zs (320-1060 nm) images simultaneously on its five CCD cameras, each of 3.1-arcmin (diagonal) field of view. The detectors in HiPERCAM are frame-transfer devices cooled thermo-electrically to 183 K, thereby allowing both long-exposure, deep imaging of faint targets, as well as high-speed (over 1000 windowed frames per second) imaging of rapidly varying targets. A comparison-star pick-off system in the telescope focal plane increases the effective field of view to 6.7 arcmin for differential photometry. Combining HiPERCAM with the world's largest optical telescope enables the detection of astronomical sources to gs ∼23 in 1 s and gs ∼28 in 1 h. In this paper, we describe the scientific motivation behind HiPERCAM, present its design, report on its measured performance, and outline some planned enhancements. © 2021 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society., HiPERCAM was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/20072013) under ERC-2013-ADG GrantAgreement no. 340040 (HiPERCAM), with additional funding for operations and enhancements provided by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). This paper is based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias, installed at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, on the island of La Palma. SGP acknowledges the support of an STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship. PR-G and TMD acknowledge support from the State Research Agency (AEI) of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU), and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) under grant AYA2017-83383-P. MAPT and TM-D acknowledge support via Ram ' on y Cajal Fellowships RYC-2015-17854 and RYC-201518148., With funding from the Spanish government through the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation SEV-2017-0709.

Since the discovery of chemically peculiar stars in globular clusters in the last century, the study of multiple populations has become increasingly important, given that chemical inhomogeneity is found in almost all globular clusters. Despite various proposed theories attempting to explain this phenomenon, fitting all the observational evidence in globular clusters with one single theory remains notoriously difficult and currently unsuccessful. In order to improve existing models and motivate new ones, we are observing globular clusters at critical conditions, e.g., metal-rich end, metal-poor end, and low mass end. In this paper, we present our first attempt to investigate multiple populations in low mass globular clusters. We obtained low-resolution spectra around 4000 A of 30 members of the globular cluster Palomar 13 using OSIRIS/Multi-object spectrograph mounted at the Gran Telescopio Canarias. The membership of red giant branch stars is confirmed by the latest proper motions from Gaia DR2 and literature velocities. After comparing the measured CN and CH spectral indices with those of the stellar models, we found a clear sign of nitrogen variation among the red giant branch stars. Palomar 13 may be the lowest mass globular cluster showing multiple populations., ApJ accepted

Authors: Bongiovanni, Ángel; Ramón-Pérez, Marina; Pérez García, Ana María; Cerviño, Miguel; Cepa, Jordi; Nadolny, Jakub; Pérez Martínez, Ricardo; Alfaro, Emilio J.; Castañeda, Héctor O.; Cedrés, Bernabé; de Diego, José A.; Ederoclite, Alessandro; Fernández-Lorenzo, Mirian; Gallego, Jesús; de Jesús González, José; González-Serrano, José Ignacio; Lara-López, Maritza A.; Oteo Gómez, Iván; Padilla Torres, Carmen P.; Pintos-Castro, Irene Pović, Mirjana; Sánchez-Portal, Miguel; Heath Jones, D.; Bland-Hawthorn, Joss; Cabrera-Lavers, Antonio, Context. The OSIRIS Tunable Filter Emission Line Object (OTELO) survey is a very deep, blind exploration of a selected region of the Extended Groth Strip and is designed for finding emission-line sources (ELSs). The survey design, observations, data reduction, astrometry, and photometry, as well as the correlation with ancillary data used to obtain a final catalogue, including photo-z estimates and a preliminary selection of ELS, were described in a previous contribution. Aims. Here, we aim to determine the main properties and luminosity function (LF) of the [O III] ELS sample of OTELO as a scientific demonstration of its capabilities, advantages, and complementarity with respect to other surveys. Methods. The selection and analysis procedures of ELS candidates obtained using tunable filter pseudo-spectra are described. We performed simulations in the parameter space of the survey to obtain emission-line detection probabilities. Relevant characteristics of [O III] emitters and the LF ([O III]), including the main selection biases and uncertainties, are presented. Results. From 541 preliminary emission-line source candidates selected around z = 0.8, a total of 184 sources were confirmed as [O III] emitters. Consistent with simulations, the minimum detectable line flux and equivalent width in this ELS sample are ∼5 × 10-19 erg s-1 cm2 and ∼6 Å, respectively. We are able to constrain the faint-end slope (α =-1.03ℓ ±ℓ 0.08) of the observed LF ([O III]) at a mean redshift of z = 0.83. This LF reaches values that are approximately ten times lower than those from other surveys. The vast majority (84%) of the morphologically classified [O III] ELSs are disc-like sources, and 87% of this sample is comprised of galaxies with stellar masses of M∗ < 1010 M· . © 2020 ESO., The authors thank the anonymous referee for her/his feedback and useful suggestions, and Terry Mahoney (at the IAC's Scientific Editorial Service) for his substantial improvements of the manuscript. AB thanks IAC researchers Begona Garcia Lorenzo, Julio Castro Almazan, and Jose A. Acosta Pulido for their useful comments. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the grants AYA2013 - 46724 - P, AYA2014 - 58861 - C3 - 1 - P, AYA2014 - 58861 - C3 - 2 - P, AYA2014 - 58861 - C3 - 3 - P, AYA2016 - 75808 - R, AYA2016 - 75931 - C2 - 1 - P, AYA2016 - 75931 - C2 - 2 - P and MDM-2017-0737 (Unidad de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu, CAB). This work was supported by the project Evolution of Galaxies, of reference AYA2017 - 88007 - C3 - 1 - P, within the "Programa estatal de fomento de la investigacion cientifica y tecnica de excelencia del Plan Estatal de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica y de Innovacion (2013-2016)" of the "Agencia Estatal de Investigacion del Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades", and co-financed by the FEDER "Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional". JAdD thanks the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) for its support through the Programa de Excelencia Severo Ochoa and the Gobierno de Canarias for the Programa de Talento Tricontinental grant. MP acknowledges financial supports from the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute (ESSTI) under the Ethiopian Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MInT), and from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the "Centre of Excellence Severo Ochoa" award for the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709). EJA acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the "Centre of Excellence Severo Ochoa" award for the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709). This article is based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias on the island of La Palma. This study makes use of data from AEGIS, a multi-wavelength sky survey conducted with the Chandra, GALEX, Hubble, Keck, CFHT, MMT, Subaru, Palomar, Spitzer, VLA, and other telescopes, and is supported in part by the NSF, NASA, and the STFC. Based on observations obtained with MegaPrime/MegaCam, a joint project of the CFHT and CEA/IRFU, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institut National des Science de l'Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) of France, and the University of Hawaii. This work is based in part on data products produced at Terapix available at the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre as part of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey, a collaborative project of NRC and CNRS. Based on observations obtained with WIRCam, a joint project of CFHT, Taiwan, Korea, Canada, France, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institute National des Sciences de l'Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique of France, and the University of Hawaii. This work is based in part on data products produced at TERAPIX, the WIRDS (WIRcam Deep Survey) consortium, and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre. This research was supported by a grant from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche ANR-07-BLAN-0228.

Conditions in a black hole outburst The binary system V404 Cygni consists of a red giant star orbiting a black hole. In 2015, a surge of accretion by the black hole caused the surrounding plasma to brighten suddenly for the first time since 1989, briefly becoming the brightest x-ray source in the sky. Dallilar et al. combined observations from radio, infrared, optical, and x-ray telescopes taken during the outburst. They compared how fast the flux decayed at each wavelength, which allowed them to constrain the size of the emitting region, determine that the plasma within it cooled through synchrotron radiation, and measure the magnetic field around the black hole. Science , this issue p. 1299

Images and low-resolution spectra of the near-Earth Jupiter family comet (JFC) 249P/LINEAR in the visible range obtained with the instrument OSIRIS in the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias on January 3, 4, 6 and February 6, 2016 are presented, together with a series of images obtained with the 0.4m telescope of the Great Shefford Observatory. The reflectance spectrum of 249P is similar to that of a B-type asteroid. The comet has an absolute (visual) nuclear magnitude $H_V=17.0\pm 0.4$, which corresponds to a radius of about 1-1.3 km for a geometric albedo $\sim 0.04-0.07$. From the analysis of GTC images using a Monte Carlo dust tail code we find that the time of maximum dust ejection rate was around 1.6 days before perihelion. We may be in front of a new class of near-Earth JFC whose source region is not the distant trans-neptunian population, but much closer in the asteroid belt. Therefore, 249P/LINEAR may be a near-Earth counterpart of the so-called main-belt comets or active asteroids., Paper accepted in Icarus (now in Press)

We report on multi-band photometric observations of four binary millisecond pulsars with the Gran Telescopio Canarias. The observations led to detection of binary companions to PSRs J1630+3734, J1741+1351 and J2042+0246 in the Sloan g', r' and i' bands. Their magnitudes in the r' band are $\approx$24.4, 24.4 and 24.0, respectively. We also set a 3$\sigma$ upper limit on the brightness of the PSR J0557+1550 companion in the r' band of $\approx$25.6 mag. Combining the optical data with the radio timing measurements and white dwarf cooling models, we show that the detected companions are cool low-mass white dwarfs with temperatures and ages in the respective ranges of (4-7)$\times 10^3$ K and 2-5 Gyr. All the detected white dwarfs are found to likely have either pure hydrogen or mixed helium-hydrogen atmospheres., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

In this work, we present the results of an observational study of 2I/Borisov carried out with the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) and the 3.6-m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), both telescopes located at the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory, in the island of La Palma (Spain). The study includes images in the visible and near-infrared, as well as visible spectra in the 3600-9200 Å wavelength range. N-body simulations were also performed to explore its orbital evolution and Galactic kinematic context. The comet's dust continuum and near-infrared colours are compatible with those observed for Solar system comets. From its visible spectrum on the nights of 2019 September 24 and 26, we measured CN gas production rates Q(CN) = (2.3 ± 0.4) × 1024 mol s-1 and Q(CN) = (9.5 ± 0.2) × 1024 mol s-1, respectively, in agreement with measurements reported by other authors on similar nights. We also obtained an upper limit for the C2 production rate of Q(C2) < (4.5 ± 0.1) × 1024 mol s-1. Dust modelling results indicate a moderate dust production rate of ∼50 kg s-1 at heliocentric distance rh = 2.6 au, with a differential power-law dust size distribution of index ∼-3.4, within the range reported for many comet comae. Our simulations show that the Galactic velocity of 2I/Borisov matches well that of known stars in the solar neighbourhood and also those of more distant regions of the Galactic disc. © 2020 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society, J. dL. and M. P. acknowledge financial support from the project ProID2017010112 under the Operational Programmes of the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund of the Canary Islands (OP-ERDF-ESF), as well as the Canarian Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI), and the project AYA2017-89090-P of the Spanish Ministerio de Econom´ıa y Competitividad’ (MINECO). C. dl F. M. and R. dl F. M. thank S. J. Aarseth for providing one of the codes used in this research and for comments on the implementation of non-gravitational forces in the calculations, and A. I. Gomez ´ de Castro for providing access to computing facilities. Part of the calculations and the data analysis were completed on the Brigit HPC server of the ‘Universidad Complutense de Madrid’ (UCM), and we thank S. Cano Alsua for his help during this ´ stage. This work was partially supported by the Spanish MINECO under grant ESP2017-87813-R. In preparation of this paper, we made use of the NASA Astrophysics Data System, the ASTROPH e-print server, the MPC data server, and the SIMBAD and VizieR databases operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https: //www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular, the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. L. M. L. acknowledges the financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Program under grant SEV-2017-0709 and from the research project PGC2018-099425-B-I00. F. M. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Plan Nacional de Astronomia y Astrofisica LEONIDAS project RTI2018-095330-B-100 and the Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Program under grant SEV2017-0709. N. P. A. acknowledges funds through the SRI/FSI project ‘Digging-Up Ice Rocks in the Solar System’ and the Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science funded by NASA’s SSERVI program at the University of Central Florida. M. D. P. acknowledges funding from the Prominent Postdoctoral Program of the University of Central Florida. A. C. S.-F. acknowledges CAPES (Coordenac¸ao de Aperfeic ˜ ¸oamento de Pessoal de N´ıvel Superior – Brasil) for financing, in part, this study (Finance Code 001). Based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) and the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), both installed at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrof´ısica de Canarias, in the island of La Palma. The TNG is operated by the Fundacion´ Galileo Galilei of the INAF (Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica). We thank E. Poretti for the allocation of Director’s Discretionary Time at TNG.

Introduction: Comet P/2019 LD2 (ATLAS) was discovered early June 2019 as a faint asteroidal object and initially classified as a Jupiter Trojan. In depth inspection of images obtained during 2019 revealed that the object is active. No signs of cometary-like activity have been detected on any Jupiter Trojans until now, despite it is widely accepted that they are captured objects from the outer solar system. For that reason, we scheduled P/2019 LD2 observations with the world’s largest optical telescope, the 10.4m Gran Telecopio CANARIAS (GTC) to study its nature as soon as it became visible in May 2020 In the meantime, Kareta et al. (2020) showed that the comet had experienced a close encounter with Jupiter on February 17, 2017 at 0.092 AU, well inside the Hill radius of the planet, 0.338 AU. They conclude that it is a recently captured Centaur, not a Jupiter Trojan. Even if P/2019 LD2 is not the first active Jupiter Trojan, it is a very interesting object that could help to better understand the transition from Centaur to JFC. Its orbit just beyond Jupiter and its activity are evocative of 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, an object considered as a prototypical "gateway" between the Centaurs and JFCs by Sarid et al. (2019). Observations: We present the observations of P/2019 LD2 (ATLAS) obtained on 2020 May 16 and 17 using the OSIRIS camera-spectrograph of the 10.4 m GTC. On May 16 we obtained images , using the Sloan g’,r’,i’,z’ filters that were used to characterize its overall level of cometary activity using a Monte Carlo dust tail fitting code as described in various papers (see, e.g. Moreno et al. 2016, 2017, and references therein). The comet presents a conspicuous coma and tail as seen Fig. 1. We also obtained two visible spectra of P/2019 LD2 on May 17 with the aim of looking for signatures of the typical gas species observed in comets. Each individual spectra consisted of an exposure of 600 seconds using the R300B grism and the 1.49′′ slit width, covering a wavelength range from 3600 to 7500 Å, and with a dispersion of 4.96 Å/pix for a 0.6′′ slit. Fig. 1 Left panel: A comparison of the observed (black contours) and modeled (red contours) tail brightness isophotes. The innermost contour corresponds to 8×10−14 solar disk units, and the brightness decrease in factors of two outwards. The images are rotated to the conventional North- up, East-to-the-left orientation. The x- and y-axis are labeled in km projected on the sky at the object distance. Right panel: A comparison of observed (black line) and modeled (red line) tail brightness along the direction described by the blue dotted line in the left panel. Past, present and future dynamical evolution: The assessment of the dynamical evolution of P/2019 LD2 requires the analysis of an extensive sample of N-body simulations. In this work, we have used the approach discussed in de la Fuente Marcos & de la Fuente Marcos (2019) and Licandro et al. (2019) to study the past, present and future evolution. Results: Our results can be summarized as follows: (i) P/2019 LD2 shows a conspicuous coma and tail with a longitude > 1′. (ii) There is no evidence of CN, C2 or C3 emission within the 3-σ level in the comet spectrum. In particular there are no signs of the CN (0-0) emission at 3880 Å that it is usually the strongest emission observed in comets. (iii) According to our model, the dust emission of P/2019 LD2 can be described by a Gaussian with a FWHM=180 days, a maximum (dM/dt)0 = 50 kg s−1 attained on 2019 November 27 (t =170 days from the observations) that then decreases again, with a current (2020 May 16) dust loss rate of 5 kg s−1. This implies a total dust mass loss of 9×108 kg since the start of the dust emission, and almost no dust emission when observed in 2018. (v) The origin of activity is most likely linked to a thermally driven process, likely associated to sublimation of crystalline water ice and clathrates (vi) The nucleus corresponds to a km-size object (with radius between 1.5 and 3.5 km), in the size-range of the JFCs. (vii) P/2019 LD2 is now an ephemeral co-orbital of Jupiter, following what looks like a short arc of a quasi-satellite cycle that started in 2017 and will end in 2028. It will experience a very close encounter with Jupiter at ∼10 Jovian radii on January 18, 2063. If it survive the close approach, its probability of escaping the solar system during the next 0.5 Myr is 0.48±0.02 (ix) The origin of P/2019 LD2 is still an open question. The probability of this comet having been captured from interstellar space during the last 0.5 Myr is 0.50±0.03, 0.79±0.06 during the last 2 Myr and to 0.89±0.07 for 4 Myr, suggesting that P/2019 LD2 can be a captured interstellar comet. Anyhow, a very close encounter with one of the giant planets of a former member of the scattered disk may have produced a fragmentation event induced by the planetary tidal force that was eventually able to form the observed, present-day, P/2019 LD2 . References de la Fuente Marcos, C., de la Fuente Marcos, R., Licandro, J., Serra-Ricart, M., & Cabrera-Lavers, A. 2019, Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society, 3, 143 Kareta, T., Volk, K., Noonan, J. W., et al. 2020, Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society, 4, 74 Licandro, J., de la Fuente Marcos, C., de la Fuente Marcos, R., et al. 2019, A&A, Moreno, F., Pozuelos, F. J., Novakovic ́, B., et al. 2017, ApJ, 837, L3 Moreno, F., Snodgrass, C., Hainaut, O., et al. 2016, A&A, 587, A155 Sarid, G., Volk, K., Steckloff, J. K., et al. 2019, ApJ, 883, L25

All stellar mass black holes have hitherto been identified by X-rays emitted by gas that is accreting onto the black hole from a companion star. These systems are all binaries with black holes below 30 M$_{\odot}$$^{1-4}$. Theory predicts, however, that X-ray emitting systems form a minority of the total population of star-black hole binaries$^{5,6}$. When the black hole is not accreting gas, it can be found through radial velocity measurements of the motion of the companion star. Here we report radial velocity measurements of a Galactic star, LB-1, which is a B-type star, taken over two years. We find that the motion of the B-star and an accompanying H$\alpha$ emission line require the presence of a dark companion with a mass of $68^{+11}_{-13}$ M$_{\odot}$, which can only be a black hole. The long orbital period of 78.9 days shows that this is a wide binary system. The gravitational wave experiments have detected similarly massive black holes$^{7,8}$, but forming such massive ones in a high-metallicity environment would be extremely challenging to current stellar evolution theories$^{9-11}$., Comment: Published in Nature on Nov 28, 2019

The evolution of galaxies through cosmic time is studied observationally by means of extragalactic surveys. The OTELO survey aims to provide the deepest narrow-band survey to date in terms of minimum detectable flux and emission line equivalent width in order to detect the faintest extragalactic emission line systems. In this way, OTELO data will complements other broad-band, narrow-band, and spectroscopic surveys. The red tunable filter of the OSIRIS instrument on the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) is used to scan a spectral window centred at $9175 \AA$, which is free from strong sky emission lines, with a sampling interval of $6 \AA$ and a bandwidth of $12 \AA$ in the most deeply explored Extended Groth Strip region. Careful data reduction using improved techniques for sky ring subtraction, accurate astrometry, photometric calibration, and source extraction enables us to compile the OTELO catalogue. This catalogue is complemented with ancillary data ranging from deep X-ray to far-infrared, including high resolution HST images, which allow us to segregate the different types of targets, derive precise photometric redshifts, and obtain the morphological classification of the extragalactic objects detected. The OTELO multi-wavelength catalogue contains 11237 entries and is 50\% complete at AB magnitude 26.38. Of these sources, 6600 have photometric redshifts with an uncertainty $z_{phot}$ better than $0.2 (1+z_{phot})$. A total of 4336 of these sources correspond to preliminary emission line candidates, which are complemented by 81 candidate stars and 483 sources that qualify as absorption line systems. The OTELO survey products were released to the public on 2019., Comment: v1: 29 pages, 29 figures. Published in Astronomy \& Astrophysics. v2: author's affiliation and final statement in Abstract updated

The Polana-Eulalia family complex is located in the inner part of the asteroid belt, bounded by the ν6 and the 3:1 resonances, where we can find another three collisional families of primitive asteroids (Erigone, Clarissa, and Sulamitis), and a low-albedo population of background objects. This region of the belt is believed to be the most likely origin of the two primitive near-Earth asteroids that are the current targets of two sample return missions: NASA's OSIRIS-REx and JAXA's Hayabusa 2 to Asteroids (101955) Bennu and (162173) Ryugu (also known as 1999 JU3), respectively. Therefore, understanding these families will enhance the scientific return of these missions. We present the results of a spectroscopic survey of asteroids in the region of the Polana-Eulalia family complex, and also asteroids from the background population of low-albedo, low-inclination objects. We obtained visible spectra of a total of 65 asteroids, using the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) and the 3.6 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), both located at the El Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory, in the island of La Palma (Spain), and the 3.6 m New Technology Telescope (NTT), located at the European Southern Observatory of La Silla, in Chile. From the spectral analysis of our sample we found that, in spite of the presence of distinct dynamical groups, the asteroids in this region present spectral homogeneity at visible wavelengths, showing a continuum of spectral slopes, from blue to moderately red, typical of primitive asteroids classified as B- and C-types. We conclude that visible spectra cannot be used to distinguish between members of the Polana and the Eulalia families, or members of the background population. The visible spectra of the two targets of sample return missions, Asteroids Bennu and Ryugu, are compatible with the spectra of the asteroids in this region, supporting previous studies that suggested either the Polana family or the background population as the most likely origins of these NEAs.

There is a typographical error in the first paragraph of Sect. 5.3: the formula “[O III]⊥4959/[O III]⊥4959 → 0.3” should read “[O III]⊥4959/[O III]⊥5007 → 0.3”.

We present the discovery of HLock01-LAB, a luminous and large Lya nebula at z=3.326. Medium-band imaging and long-slit spectroscopic observations with the Gran Telescopio Canarias reveal extended emission in the Lya 1215\AA, CIV1550\AA, and HeII 1640\AA lines over ~100kpc, and a total luminosity L(Lya)=(6.4+/-0.1)x10^44 erg s^-1. HLock01-LAB presents an elongated morphology aligned with two faint radio sources contained within the central ~8kpc of the nebula. The radio structures are consistent to be faint radio jets or lobes of a central galaxy, whose spectrum shows nebular emission characteristic of a type-II active galactic nucleus (AGN). The continuum emission of the AGN at short wavelengths is, however, likely dominated by stellar emission of the host galaxy, for which we derive a stellar mass M* = 2.3x10^11 Msun. The detection of extended emission in CIV and CIII] indicates that the gas within the nebula is not primordial. Feedback may have enriched the halo at at least 50 kpc from the nuclear region. Using rest-frame UV emission-line diagnostics, we find that the gas in the nebula is likely heated by the AGN. Nevertheless, at the center of the nebula we find extreme emission line ratios of Lya/CIV~60 and Lya/HeII~80, one of the highest values measured to date, and well above the standard values of photoionization models (Lya/HeII~30 for case B photoionization). Our data suggest that jet-induced shocks are likely responsible for the increase of the electron temperature and, thus, the observed Lya enhancement in the center of the nebula. This scenario is further supported by the presence of radio structures and perturbed kinematics in this region. The large Lya luminosity in HLock01-LAB is likely due to a combination of AGN photoionization and jet-induced shocks, highlighting the diversity of sources of energy powering Lya nebulae. [abridged], Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A. Abstract abridged for arXiv submission

We report detection of the binary companion to the millisecond pulsar J1741+1351 with the Gran Telescopio Canarias. The optical source position coincides with the pulsar coordinates and its magnitudes are g' = 24.84(5), r' = 24.38(4) and i' = 24.17(4). Comparison of the data with the white dwarf evolutionary models shows that the source can be a He-core white dwarf with a temperature of $\approx 6000$ K and a mass of $\approx 0.2$ M$_{\odot}$. The latter is in excellent agreement with the companion mass obtained from the radio timing solution for PSR J1741+1351., Comment: Submitted to Journal of Physics: Conference Series

Context. Asteroid (6478) Gault was discovered to exhibit a comet-like tail in observations from December 2018, becoming a new member of the so-called active asteroid population in the main asteroid belt. Aims. We seek to investigate the grain properties of the dust ejected from asteroid (6478) Gault and to give insight into the activity mechanism(s). Methods. We use a Monte Carlo dust tail brightness code to retrieve the dates of dust ejection, the physical properties of the grains, and the total dust mass losses during each event. The code takes into account the brightness contribution of the asteroid itself. The model is applied to a large data set of images spanning the period from 2019 January 11 to 2019 March 13. In addition, we carried out both short- and long-term photometric measurements of the asteroid. Results. It is shown that, to date, asteroid (6478) Gault has experienced two episodes of impulsive dust ejection, which took place around 2018 November 5 and 2019 January 2. These two episodes released at least 1.4 × 10 7 kg and 1.6 × 10 6 kg of dust, respectively, at escape speeds. The size distribution, consisting of particles in the 1 μm-1 cm radius range, follows a broken power law with bending points near 15 μm and 870 μm. On the other hand, the photometric series indicate a nearly constant magnitude over several 5-7.3 h periods, which is a possible effect of the masking of a rotational light curve by the dust. Conclusions. The dust particles forming Gault's tails were released from the asteroid at escape speeds, but the specific ejection mechanism is unclear until photometry of the dust-free asteroid are conducted to assess whether this was related to rotational disruption or to other possible causes. © ESO 2019., We would like to thank the reviewer for his/her constructive comments which helped to substantially improve the quality of the paper. F. Moreno acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the >Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa> award for the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709). TRAPPIST-North is a project funded by the University of Liege, in collaboration with Cadi Ayyad University of Marrakech (Morocco). TRAPPIST-South is a project funded by the Belgian Fonds (National) de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S.-FNRS) under grant FRFC 2.5.594.09. F.E.J and M.G are F.R.S.-FNRS Senior Research Associates. This work is also based on observations obtained at the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, which is a joint project of the Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia, e Inovacao (MCTI) da Republica Federativa do Brasil, the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU). This work was supported by contracts AYA2015-67152-R and AYA 2015-71975-REDT from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO). J. Licandro gratefully acknowledges support from contract AYA2015-67772-R (MINECO, Spain).

We present a super-Earth orbiting close to the inner edge of the habitable zone of the cool dwarf star K2-286 (EPIC 249889081), detected with data from the K2 mission in its $15^{th}$ campaign. The planet has radius of $2.1\pm0.2$ R$_{\oplus}$, near the 1.5 - 2.0 R$_{\oplus}$ gap in the radii distribution. The equilibrium temperature is $347^{+21}_{-11}$ K, cooler than most of the small planets with well measured masses, and the orbital period is $27.359\pm0.005$ days. K2-286, located at a distance of $76.3\pm0.3$ pc, is an M0V star with estimated effective temperature of $3926\pm100$ K, less active than other M dwarf stars hosting exoplanets. The expected radial velocity semi-amplitude induced by the planet on the star is $1.9^{+1.3}_{-1.2}$ m$\cdot$s$^{-1}$, and the amplitude of signals in transit transmission spectroscopy is estimated at $5.0\pm3.0$ ppm. Follow-up observations for mass measurements and transit spectroscopy should be desirable for this relatively bright target ($m_V=12.76, m_{Ks}=9.32$) hosting a transiting super-Earth within the inner edge of the habitable zone., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We report the detection of the likely companion of the binary millisecond pulsar J0740+6620 with the Gran Telescopio Canarias in the $r'$ and $i'$ bands. The position of the detected starlike source coincides with the pulsar coordinates within the 1$\sigma$ uncertainty of $\approx$ 0.2 arcsec. Its magnitudes are $r'=26.51\pm0.17$ and $i'=25.49\pm0.15$. Comparing the data with the white dwarf cooling tracks suggests that it can be an ultracool helium-atmosphere white dwarf with the temperature $\lesssim$ 3500 K and cooling age $\gtrsim$ 5 Gyr. The age is consistent with the pulsar characteristic age corrected for kinematic effects. This is the reddest source among known white dwarf companions of millisecond pulsars. Detection of the source in other bands would be useful to clarify its properties and nature., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

OSIRIS (Optical System for Imaging and low-Intermediate-Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy) Multi-Object Spectroscopy (MOS) observing mode is available to the science community of the GTC (Gran Telescopio Canarias) from early 2014. The MOS production line allows the researchers to specify a MOS observation in a self-contained way by using a software tool, in order to bridge the gap between science aims and the multiplexed spectroscopic data gathering at the telescope. It gives the researcher the guarantee that the observation will perform as expected, thanks to the computer vision based quality control checks of the masks produced. This article describes the architecture of the production line of MOS observations, its activities, actors, and subsystems, and how all of them mesh so that the production line works efficiently and effectively, in an automatized way, using a model-centric approach where the observation design acts as the single source of truth for the entire organization.

The submillimeter galaxy (SMG) HERMES J105751.1+573027 (hereafter HLock01) at z = 2.9574 +/- 0.0001 is one of the brightest gravitationally lensed sources discovered in the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey. Apart from the high flux densities in the far-infrared, it is also extremely bright in the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV), with a total apparent magnitude m_UV = 19.7 mag. We report here deep spectroscopic observations with the Gran Telescopio Canarias of the optically bright lensed images of HLock01. Our results suggest that HLock01 is a merger system composed of the Herschel-selected SMG and an optically bright Lyman break-like galaxy (LBG), separated by only 3.3 kpc in projection. While the SMG appears very massive (M* = 5x10^11 Msun), with a highly extinguished stellar component (A_V = 4.3), the LBG is a young, lower-mass (M* = 1x10^10 Msun), but still luminous (10xL*_UV) satellite galaxy. Detailed analysis of the high signal-to-noise (S/N) rest-frame UV spectrum of the LBG shows complex kinematics of the gas, exhibiting both blueshifted and redshifted absorption components. While the blueshifted component is associated with strong galactic outflows from the massive stars in the LBG, as is common in most star-forming galaxies, the redshifted component may be associated with gas inflow seen along a favorable sightline to the LBG. We also find evidence of an extended gas reservoir around HLock01 at an impact parameter of 110 kpc, through the detection of C II 1334$\AA$ absorption in the red wing of a bright Ly-alpha emitter at z = 3.327. The data presented here highlight the power of gravitational lensing in high S/N studies to probe deeply into the physics of high-z star forming galaxies., Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ

Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ) © 2018. The American Astronomical Society.-- 33 pages including 20 figures and 9 tables, We report deep spectroscopy of 10 planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) using the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). Our targets reside in different regions of M31, including halo streams and the dwarf satellite M32, and kinematically deviate from the extended disk. The temperature-sensitive [O iii] λ4363 line is observed in all PNe. For four PNe, the GTC spectra extend beyond 1 μm, enabling the explicit detection of the [S iii] λ6312 and λλ9069, 9531 lines and thus determination of the [S iii] temperature. Abundance ratios are derived and generally consistent with AGB model predictions. Our PNe probably all evolved from low-mass (, We are grateful to the anonymous referee whose excellent comments and suggestions greatly improved this article. This work is supported by grants from the HKRGC (HKU7062/13P) and the Seed Fund for Basic Research at the HKU (201611159037). This work is partly supported by grants DGAPA/PAPIIT-107215 and CONACyT-CB2015-254132. R.G.B. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, through projects AYA2016-77846-P and AYA2014-57490-P. X.W.L. acknowledges financial support from the National Key Basic Research Program of China 2014CB845700. M3.B. is partially supported by ANPCyT through grant PICT-2014-2708 and by MinCyT-DAAD bilateral cooperation through grant DA/16/07. X.F. is grateful to Albert A. Zijlstra, Bruce Balick, and Romano L.M. Corradi for in-depth discussion. We thank Paolo Ventura for providing us the AGB model predictions. We also thank Michael R. Merrifield for giving us the permission to reproduce the stellar orbit (in Figure 2 of this paper) based on Figure 2 in Merrett et al. (2003). This research also made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System (http://adsabs.harvard.edu), the SDSS DR10 Science Archive Server (SAS; http://data.sdss3.org/), the SDSS DR12 Finding Chart Tool (https://skyserver.sdss.org/dr12/en/tools/chart/), and the SIMBAD Astronomical Database (http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/).

We report the discovery of a ~100 kpc ionized nebula associated with the radio quiet type 2 quasar (QSO2) nicknamed the "Teacup" (z=0.085). The giant nebula is among the largest known around active galaxies at any z. We propose that it is part of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of the QSO2 host, which has been populated with tidal debris by galactic interactions. This rich gaseous medium has been rendered visible due to the illumination by the powerful active nucleus (AGN). Subsolar abundances (~0.5Z(sun)) are tentatively favored by AGN photoionization models. We also report the detection of coronal emission (Fe+6) from the NE bubble, at ~9 kpc from the AGN. The detection of coronal lines at such large distances from the AGN and the [NII]/Halpha, [SII]/Halpha, [OI]/Halpha optical emission line ratios of the giant nebula are consistent with the fading quasar scenario proposed by Gagne et al. (2014). The fading rate appears to have been faster in the last ~46,000 yr. Deep wide field integral field spectroscopy of giant nebulae around powerful AGN such as the "Teacup's" with instruments such as MUSE on VLT opens up a way to detect and study the elusive material from the CGM around massive active galaxies thanks to the illumination by the luminous AGN., 12 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Aims.Several primitive families in the inner region of the main asteroid belt were identified as potential sources for two near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), (101955) Bennu and (162173) Ryugu, targets of the sample-return missions OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2, respectively. Four of the families, located at high proper inclinations (i> 10°), have not yet been compositionally studied: Klio, Chaldaea, Chimaera, and Svea. We want to characterize and analyze these families within the context of our PRIMitive Asteroid Spectroscopic Survey (PRIMASS), in order to complete the puzzle of the origins of the two NEAs.Methods.We obtained visible spectra (0.5–0.9μm) of a total of 73 asteroids within the Klio, Chaldaea, Chimaera, and Svea collisional families, using the instrument OSIRIS at the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias. We performed a taxonomical classification of these objects, and an analysis of the possible presence of absorption bands related to aqueous alterations, comparing the results with already studied primitive families in the inner main belt.Results.We present here reflectance spectra for 30 asteroids in the Klio family, 15 in Chaldaea, 20 in Chimaera, and 8 in Svea. We show that Klio, Chaldaea, and Chimaera members have moderately red spectral slopes, with aqueous alteration absorption bands centered around 0.7μm, characteristic of the group of primitive families known as Erigone-like. In contrast, Svea shows no 0.7μm features, and neutral and blue spectral slopes, and thus is a Polana-like family. While all four families might be related to (162173) Ryugu, the only family studied in this work that might be related to (101955) Bennu is Svea.

We present deep imaging observations, orbital dynamics, and dust tail model analyses of the double-component asteroid P/2016 J1 (J1-A and J1-B). The observations were acquired at the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) from mid March to late July, 2016. A statistical analysis of backward-in-time integrations of the orbits of a large sample of clone objects of P/2016 J1-A and J1-B shows that the minimum separation between them occurred most likely $\sim$2300 days prior to the current perihelion passage, i.e., during the previous orbit near perihelion. This closest approach was probably linked to a fragmentation event of their parent body. Monte Carlo dust tail models show that those two components became active simultaneously $\sim$250 days before the current perihelion, with comparable maximum loss rates of $\sim$0.7 kg s$^{-1}$ and $\sim$0.5 kg s$^{-1}$, and total ejected masses of 8$\times$10$^{6}$ kg and 6$\times$10$^{6}$ kg for fragments J1-A and J1-B, respectively. In consequence, the fragmentation event and the present dust activity are unrelated. The simultaneous activation times of the two components and the fact that the activity lasted 6 to 9 months or longer, strongly indicate ice sublimation as the most likely mechanism involved in the dust emission process., Accepted by ApJ Letters, Feb. 17, 2017

The Canarias InfraRed Camera Experiment (CIRCE) is a near-infrared (1-2.5μm) imager, polarimeter and low-resolution spectrograph operating as a visitor instrument for the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) 10.4-m telescope. It was designed and built largely by graduate students and postdocs, with help from the University of Florida (UF) astronomy engineering group, and is funded by the UF and the US National Science Foundation. CIRCE is intended to help fill the gap in near-infrared capabilities prior to the arrival of Especrografo Multiobjecto Infra-Rojo (EMIR) to the GTC and will also provide the following scientific capabilities to compliment EMIR after its arrival: high-resolution imaging, narrowband imaging, high-time-resolution photometry, imaging polarimetry, and low resolution spectroscopy. In this paper, we review the design, fabrication, integration, lab testing, and on-sky performance results for CIRCE. These include a novel approach to the opto-mechanical design, fabrication, and alignment. © 2018 World Scientific Publishing Company., CIRCE was developed with support of the University of Florida and the National Science Foundation (NSF grant AST-0352664). The CIRCE team gratefully acknowledges the collaborative support of the Gran Telescopio Canarias management and staff in this endeavor - both the current staff and, in particular, the long-standing support of the previous Director Pedro Alvarez and the previous Project Scientist J. M. Rodriguez.

Two primitive near Earth asteroids, (101955) Bennu and (162173) Ryugu, will be visited by a spacecraft with the aim of returning samples back to Earth. Since these objects are believed to originate in the inner main belt primitive collisional families (Erigone, Polana, Clarissa, and Sulamitis) or in the background of asteroids outside these families, the characterization of these primitive populations will enhance the scientific return of the missions. The main goal of this work is to shed light on the composition of the Erigone collisional family by means of visible spectroscopy. Asteroid (163) Erigone has been classified as a primitive object, and we expect the members of this family to be consistent with the spectral type of the parent body. We have obtained visible spectra (0.5 to 0.9 microns) for 101 members of the Erigone family, using the OSIRIS instrument at the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias. We found that 87 percent of the objects have typically primitive visible spectra consistent with that of (163) Erigone. In addition, we found that a significant fraction of these objects (approximately 50 percent) present evidence of aqueous alteration.

We obtained long-slit optical spectroscopy of one transit of WASP-48b with the Optical System for Imaging and low-Intermediate-Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy (OSIRIS) spectrograph at the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). We integrated the spectrum of WASP-48 and one reference star in several channels with different wavelength ranges, creating numerous color light curves of the transit. We fit analytic transit curves to the data taking into account the systematic effects present in the time series in an effort to measure the change of the planet-to-star radius ratio ($R_p/R_s$) across wavelength. After removing the transit model and systematic trends to the curves we reached precisions between 261 ppm and 455-755 ppm for the white and spectroscopic light curves, respectively. We obtained $R_p/R_s$ uncertainty values between $0.8 \times 10^{-3}$ and $1.5\times 10^{-3}$ for all the curves analyzed in this work. The measured transit depth for the curves made by integrating the wavelength range between 530 nm and 905 nm is in agreement with previous studies. We report a relatively flat transmission spectrum for WASP-48b with no statistical significant detection of atmospheric species, although the theoretical models that fit the data more closely include of TiO and VO., Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

CIRCE is a near-infrared (1-2.5 micron) imager (including low-resolution spectroscopy and polarimetery) in operation as a visitor instrument on the Gran Telescopio Canarias 10.-4m tele scope. It was built largely by graduate students and postdocs, with help from the UF Astronomy engineering group, and is funded by the University of Florida and the U.S. National Science Foundation. CIRCE is helping to fill the gap in time between GTC first light and the arrival of EMIR, and will also provide the following scientific capabilities to compliment EMIR after its arrival: high-resolution imaging, narrowband imaging, high-time-resolution photometry, polarimetry, and low-resolution spectroscopy. There are already scientific results from CIRCE, some of which we will review. Additionally, we will go over the observing modes of CIRCE, including the two additional modes that were added during a service and upgrading run in March 2016.

We present the instrumentation plan of the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) until 2019. It includes a suite of instruments covering a wide wavelength range (from 350 to 2000 nm), with imaging, multiplexed (MOS, IFUs, and Fabry-Perot) spectroscopy at a resolution up to R=30000, polarimetric capabilities, and adaptive optics correction. Up to six instruments will be simultaneously available, taking advantage of five, full-equipped and interchangeable focal configurations of GTC, which include one Main Cassegrain focus, two Nasmyth platforms, and two Folded-Cassegrain foci.

We report the discovery of the first hyperluminous infrared galaxy (HyLIG) in the course of the European Large Area ISO Survey (ELAIS). This object has been detected by ISO at 6.7, 15, and 90 microns, and is found to be a broad-line, radio-quiet quasar at a redshift: z = 1.099. From a detailed multi-component model fit of the spectral energy distribution, we derive a total infrared luminosity: L_IR (1-1000 microns) ~ 1.0 x 10E13 h_65^-2 L_sun (q_0 = 0.5), and discuss the possible existence of a starburst contributing to the far-IR output. Observations to date present no evidence for lens magnification. This galaxy is one of the very few HyLIGs with an X-ray detection. On the basis of its soft X-ray properties, we suggest that this broad-line object may be the face-on analogue of narrow-line, Seyfert-like HyLIGs., 6 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present observations and dust tail models of activated asteroid P/2015 X6 from deep imaging data acquired at the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) from 2015 mid-December to 2016 late January. The results of the modeling indicate that the asteroid has undergone sustained dust loss over a period of two months or longer. The dust parameters, derived from multidimensional fits of the available images, are compatible with either ice sublimation or rotational instability processes. An impulsive event, as might be associated with an impact with another body, is less likely. A power-law distribution of particles, with minimum and maximum radii of 1 mu m and 1 cm and a power index of -3.3, is found to be consistent with the observations. Depending on the model of ejection velocity adopted, the particle velocities are found to be in the range of 0.3-10 m s(-1). The activation time was between 18 and 26 days before discovery. The total mass ejected from that time to the most recent observation is in the range 5-9 x 10(6) kg. No dust features giving indication of past activity earlier than the activation time have been observed., This work was supported by contract AYA2015-67152-R from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad. J. Licandro gratefully acknowledges support from contract ESP2013-47816-C4-2-P.

We present deep imaging observations of activated asteroid P/2016 G1 (PANSTARRS) using the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) from 2016 late April to early June. The images are best interpreted as the result of a relatively short-duration event with an onset of about 350(+30)(-10) days before perihelion (i.e., around 2016 February 10), starting sharply and decreasing with 24(-7)(+10) days (HWHM). The results of the modeling imply that the emission of similar to 1.7. x. 10(7) kg of dust, if composed of particles of 1 mu m to 1 cm in radius, is distributed following a power law of index -3 and having a geometric albedo of 0.15. A detailed fitting of a conspicuous westward feature in the head of the comet-like object indicates that a significant fraction of the dust was ejected along a privileged direction right at the beginning of the event, which suggests that the parent body has possibly suffered an impact followed by a partial or total disruption. From the limiting magnitude reachable with the instrumental setup, and assuming a geometric albedo of 0.15 for the parent body, an upper limit for the size of possible fragment debris of similar to 50 m in radius is derived., This work was supported by contracts AYA2015-67152-R and AYA2015-71975-REDT from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad. J.L. gratefully acknowledges support from contract AYA2015-67772-R.

We observed the hot Jupiter HAT-P-32b (also known as HAT-P-32Ab) to determine its optical transmission spectrum by measuring the wavelength-dependent planet-to-star radius ratios in the region between 518 - 918 nm. We used the OSIRIS instrument at the GTC in long slit spectroscopy mode, placing HAT-P-32 and a reference star in the same slit and obtaining a time series of spectra covering two transit events. Using the best quality data set, we were able to yield 20 narrow-band transit light curves, with each passband spanning a 20 nm wide interval. After removal of all systematic noise signals and light curve modeling the uncertainties for the resulting radius ratios lie between 337 and 972 ppm. The radius ratios show little variation with wavelength suggesting a high altitude cloud layer masking any atmospheric features. Alternatively, a strong depletion in alkali metals or a much smaller than expected planetary atmospheric scale height could be responsible for the lack of atmospheric features. Our result of a flat transmission spectrum is consistent with a previous ground-based study of the optical spectrum of this planet. This agreement between independent results demonstrates that ground-based measurements of exoplanet atmospheres can give reliable and reproducible results despite the fact that the data often is heavily affected by systematic noise, as long as the noise source is well understood and properly corrected. We also extract an optical spectrum of the M-dwarf companion HAT-P-32B. Using PHOENIX stellar atmosphere models we determine an effective temperature of $T_\mathrm{eff}= 3187^{+60}_{-71}$ K, slightly colder than previous studies relying only on broadband infra-red data., Accepted for publication in A&A

The observation of blank fields, defined as regions of the sky that are devoid of stars down to a given threshold magnitude, constitutes one of the most relevant calibration procedures required for the proper reduction of astronomical data obtained following typical observing strategies. In this work, we have used the Delaunay triangulation to search for deep blank fields throughout the whole sky, with a minimum size of 10 arcmin in diameter and an increasing threshold magnitude from 15 to 18 in the R band of the USNO-B Catalog of the United States Naval Observatory. The result is a catalogue with the deepest blank fields known so far. A short sample of these regions has been tested with the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias, and it has been shown to be extremely useful for medium and large size telescopes. Because some of the regions found could also be suitable for new extragalactic studies, we have estimated the galactic extinction in the direction of each deep blank field. This catalogue is accessible through the Virtual Observatory tool TESELA, and the user can retrieve - and visualize using Aladin - the deep blank fields available near a given position in the sky.

We present a compilation of HST images of 58 luminous SDSS type 2 AGNs at 0.3 25/42 or >59%) show clear signatures of morphological disturbance which are in most cases identified with merger/interaction processes. We discuss this in the context of related works on type 2 quasars and powerful radio galaxies. We study in detail the particular case of the radio quiet type 2 quasar SDSS J143027.66-005614.8 at z=0.32 based on VLT, HST and SDSS imaging and spectroscopic data. We discuss the global properties of the object in the context of theoretical and observational studies of galaxy mergers/interactions and their role in the triggering of the nuclear and star formation activities in the most luminous active galaxies.

We present colour transformations for the conversion of the W1 and W2 magnitudes of WISE photometric system to the Johnson Cousins’ BVRI, SDSS gri, and 2MASS JHKs photometric systems, for dwarfs. The W3 and W4 magnitudes were not considered due to their insufficient signal to noise ratio (S/N). The coordinates of 825 dwarfs along with their BVRI, gri, and JHKs data, taken from Bilir et al. (2008) were matched with the coordinates of stars in the preliminary data release of WISE (Wright et al. 2010) and a homogeneous dwarf sample with high S/N ratio have been obtained using the following constraints: 1) the data were dereddened, 2) giants were identified and excluded from the sample, 3) sample stars were selected according to data quality, 4) transformations were derived for sub samples of different metallicity range, and 5) transformations are two colour dependent. These colour transformations, coupled with known absolute magnitudes at shorter wavelenghts, can be used in space density evaluation for the Galactic (thin and thick) discs, at distances larger than the ones evaluated with JHKs photometry.

Low mass X-ray binaries that show thermonuclear bursts are ideal sources for constraining the equation of state of neutron star matter. The lack of independent distance measurements for most of these sources, however, prevents a systematic exploration of the masses and radii of the neutron stars, hence limiting the equation of state studies. We present here a measurement of the distance to the low mass X-ray binary 4U 1608-52 that is based on the study of the interstellar extinction towards the source. We first model the individual absorption edges of the elements Ne and Mg in the high resolution X-ray spectrum obtained with XMM-Newton. We then combine this information with a measurement of the run of reddening with distance using red clump stars and determine a minimum distance to the source of 3.9 kpc, with a most probable value of 5.8 kpc. Finally, we analyze time-resolved X-ray spectra of Type-I X-ray bursts observed from this source to measure the mass and the radius of the neutron star. We find a mass of M = 1.74 +/- 0.14 M_sun and a radius of R = 9.3 +/- 1.0 km, respectively. This mass and radius can be achieved by several multi-nucleon equations of state., ApJ in print. Resulting probability distributions of our measurements can be found at http://ice.as.arizona.edu/~ns

Over the last decade there have been a series of results supporting the hypothesis of the existence of a long thin bar in the Milky Way with a half-length of 4.5 kpc and a position angle of around 45 deg. This is apparently a very different structure from the triaxial bulge of the Galaxy, which is thicker and shorter and dominates the star counts at |l, (8 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in A&A)

We present colour transformations for the conversion of the {\em 2MASS} photometric system to the Johnson-Cousins $UBVRI$ system and further into the {\em SDSS} $ugriz$ system. We have taken {\em SDSS} $gri$ magnitudes of stars measured with the 2.5-m telescope from $SDSS$ Data Release 5 (DR5), and $BVRI$ and $JHK_{s}$ magnitudes from Stetson's catalogue and \citet{Cu03}, respectively. We matched thousands of stars in the three photometric systems by their coordinates and obtained a homogeneous sample of 825 stars by the following constraints, which are not used in previous transformations: 1) the data are de-reddened, 2) giants are omitted, and 3) the sample stars selected are of the highest quality. We give metallicity, population type, and transformations dependent on two colours. The transformations provide absolute magnitude and distance determinations which can be used in space density evaluations at short distances where some or all of the {\em SDSS} $ugriz$ magnitudes are saturated. The combination of these densities with those evaluated at larger distances using {\em SDSS} $ugriz$ photometry will supply accurate Galactic model parameters, particularly the local space densities for each population., 11 pages, including 10 figures and 7 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Context. Clusters of galaxies are located at the intersection of cosmic filaments and are still accreting galaxies and groups along these preferential directions. However, because of their relatively low contrast on the sky, filaments are difficult to detect (unless a large amount of spectroscopic data are available), and unambiguous detections have been limited until now to relatively low redshifts (z< ∼ 0.3). Aims. This project is aimed at searching for extensions and filaments around clusters, traced by galaxies selected to be at the cluster redshift based on the red sequence. In the 0.4, F.D. acknowledges long-term support from CNES. I.M. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the grant AYA2013-42227P.

We present the first direct image of the high-metallicity gas component in a planetary nebula (NGC 6778), taken with the OSIRIS Blue Tunable Filter centered on the O II 4649+50 angstroms optical recombination lines (ORLs) at the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias. We show that the emission of these faint O II ORLs is concentrated in the central parts of the planetary nebula and is not spatially coincident either with emission coming from the bright [O III] 5007 angstroms collisionally excited line (CEL) or the bright H alpha recombination line. From monochromatic emission line maps taken with VIMOS at the 8.2m Very Large Telescope, we find that the spatial distribution of the emission from the auroral [O III] 4363 line resembles that of the O II ORLs but differs from nebular [O III] 5007 CEL distribution, implying a temperature gradient inside the planetary nebula. The centrally peaked distribution of the O II emission and the differences with the [O III] and H I emission profiles are consistent with the presence of an H-poor gas whose origin may be linked to the binarity of the central star. However, determination of the spatial distribution of the ORLs and CELs in other PNe, and a comparison of their dynamics is needed to further constrain the geometry and ejection mechanism of the metal-rich (H-poor) component and hence, understand the origin of the abundance discrepancy problem in PNe., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters

Utilising the unique location of red clump giants on colour-magnitude diagrams obtained from various near-IR surveys, we derived specific reddening-distance relations towards 119 Galactic novae for which independent reddening measurements are available. Using the derived distance-extinction relation and the independent measurements of reddening we calculated the most likely distances for each system. We present the details of our distance measurement technique and the results of this analysis, which yielded the distances of 73 Galactic novae and allowed us to set lower limits on the distances of 46 systems. We also present the reddening-distance relations derived for each nova, which may be useful to analyze the different Galactic components present in the line of sight., Comment: Published in MNRAS (24 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables), Minor typo correction. For the catalogue which has all reddening-distance relations, see http://highenergyastro.istanbul.edu.tr/novae_cat/index.php, 2016MNRAS.461.1177O

We describe the boxy bulge, long stellar bar and elliptical ring of the Galaxy. This model has largely evolved from NIR survey work by many teams and differs from other models with a monolithic ellipsoidal bulge. We maintain that the structure of the inner Galaxy can only be properly studied by adequately sampling the entire Galactic plane for |l| < 30°, |b| < 1.5°, and that the bulge is best studied at least 3° from the plane. We briefly report a slight radially outwardly increasing metallicity gradient along the bar and reaffirm de Vaucouleurs & Pence's (1978) suggestion that the Galaxy is probably of morphological type SAB(rs)bc II.

We present optical imaging and long slit spectroscopic observations of nine luminous type 2 active galactic nuclei (AGN) within the redshift range 0.3 < z < 0.6 based on Very Large Telescope Focal Reducer and Low Dispersion Spectrograph (VLT FORS2) data. Most objects (6/9) are high luminosity Seyfert 2, and three are type 2 quasars (QSO2), with our sample extending to lower luminosity than previous works. Seven out of nine objects (78 per cent) showmorphological evidence for interactions or mergers in the form of disturbed morphologies and/or peculiar features such as tidal tails, amorphous haloes, or compact emission line knots. The detection rate of morphological evidence for interaction is consistent with those found during previous studies of QSO2 at similar z, suggesting that the merger rate is independent of AGN power at the high end of the AGN luminosity function.We find the emission line flux spatial profiles are often dominated by the often spatially unresolved central source. In addition, all but one of our samples is associated with much fainter, extended line emission. We find these extended emission line structures have a variety of origins and ionization mechanisms: star-forming companions, tidal features, or extended ionized nebulae. AGN related processes dominate the excitation of the nuclear gas. Stellar photoionization sometimes plays a role in extended structures often related to mergers/interactions., We thank the staff at Paranal Observatory for their support during the observations. AH acknowledges Fundaciao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) support through UID/FIS/04434/2013, and through project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029170 (Reference FCT PTDC/FISAST/3214/2012) funded by FCT-MEC (PIDDAC) and FEDER (COMPETE), in addition to FP7 project PIRSES-GA-2013-612701. AH also acknowledges a Marie Curie Fellowship cofunded by the FP7 and the FCT (DFRH/WIIA/57/2011) and FP7/FCT Complementary Support grant SFRH/BI/52155/2013 MVM and SA acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economıa y Competitividad through the grants AYA2012-32295 and AYA-2012-39408-C02-01. CRA is supported by a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (PIEF-GA-2012-327934). RGD acknowledges support through the grant AYA2010-15081.

We describe a deep multi-colour NIR survey (TCS-CAIN) that has been recently completed at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (Spain). The survey is of selected areas distributed along the Galactic plane and it goes deeper than 2MASS or DENIS. Its aim was to explore the large-scale structure of the Milky Way and the Galactic components, in particular the Galactic bar. This survey has ~10 million point-source detections in J , H , and K s filters with a photometric accuracy of ~0.1 mag in the three bands and a positional accuracy of ~0.2´´ (based on the 2MASS catalogue as the astrometric reference). Approximately 530 fields have been observed in near plane regions of the Galaxy covering a total area of ~41 deg 2 in the sky. This survey is at least one magnitude deeper than 2MASS, and even more in the inner Galaxy where it is less limited by source confusion.