The light elements Li, O, Na, Al, and Mg are known to show star-to-star variations in the globular clusters 47 Tuc and NGC 6752. We have investigated the behavior of the α element sulfur, for which no previous measurements exist in any Galactic globular cluster. We used high-resolution UVES spectra of Si multiplet 1 around 923 nm, and determined S abundances by means of ATLAS static plano-parallel models. NLTE corrections were applied and 3D corrections were also computed from co5bold 3D hydrodynamical models. Sulfur has been measured in four subgiant stars in NGC 6752, leading to an average value of [S/Fe] = +0.49 ± 0.15 dex, consistent with what is observed in field stars of similar metallicity. In 47 Tuc, we measured S in four turnoff (TO) and five subgiant (SG) stars, for an average value of [S/Fe] = 0.18 ± 0.14 dex. While the measurement errors are consistent with a constant value among all cluster stars analyzed, we detected a highly significant correlation with sodium abundance, as well as a tentative one with silicon. The sulfur–sodium correlation is difficult to explain in terms of nucleosynthesis. Given its high statistical significance, it is also difficult to dismiss it as fortuitous. Until better data for more stars are available, the question as to its origin remains open.

The role of the environment of an elliptical galaxy on its hot interstellar gas is discussed. In general, the X-ray halos of early-type galaxies tend to be smaller and fainter in denser environments, with the exception of group-central galaxies. X-ray observations show many examples of nearby galaxies which are undergoing gas stripping. On the other hand, most bright galaxies in clusters do manage to retain small coronae of X-ray emission. Recent theoretical and observational results on the role of feedback from AGN at the centers of elliptical galaxies on their interstellar gas are reviewed. X-ray observations show many examples of X-ray holes in the central regions of brightest-cluster galaxies; in many cases, the X-ray holes are filled with radio lobes. Similar radio bubbles are seen in groups and individual early-type galaxies. “Ghost bubbles” are often seen at larger radii in clusters and galaxies; these bubbles are faint in high radio frequencies, and are believed to be old radio bubbles which have risen buoyantly in the hot gas. Low frequency radio observations show that many of the ghost bubbles have radio emission; in general, these long wavelength observations show that radio sources are much larger and involve greater energies than had been previously thought. The radio bubbles can be used to estimate the total energy output of the radio jets. The total energies deposited by radio jets exceed the losses from the gas due to radiative cooling, indicating that radio sources are energetically capable of heating the cooling core gas and preventing rapid cooling.

The project aims to recover the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Havana (AOUH) for science outreach at the national level, in order to help increasing the interest in science primarily among children and youth.

We present the results of a multiwavelength campaign searching for young objects in the intragroup medium of seven compact groups of galaxies: HCG 2, 7, 22, 23, 92, 100 and NGC 92. We used Fabry-Perot velocity fields and rotation curves together with GALEX NUV and FUV images, optical R-band and HI maps to evaluate the stage of interaction of each group. We conclude that groups (i) HCG 7 and HCG 23 are in an early stage of interaction, (ii) HCG 2 and HCG 22 are mildly interacting, and (iii) HCG 92, HCG 100 and NGC 92 are in a late stage of evolution. Evolved groups have a population of young objects in their intragroup medium while no such population is found within the less evolved groups. We also report the discovery of a tidal dwarf galaxy candidate in the tail of NGC 92. These three groups, besides containing galaxies which have peculiar velocity fields, also show extended HI tails. Our results indicate that the advanced stage of evolution of a group together with the presence of intragroup HI clouds may lead to star formation in the intragroup medium.

Although originally conceived as primarily an extragalactic survey, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I), and its extensions SDSS-II and SDSS-III, continue to have a major impact on our understanding of the formation and evolution of our host galaxy, the Milky Way. The sub-survey SEGUE: Sloan Extension for Galactic Exploration and Understanding, excuted as part of SDSS-II, obtained some 3500 square degrees of additional ugriz imaging, mostly at lower Galactic latitudes, in order to better sample the disk systems of the Galaxy. Most importantly, it obtained over 240,000 medium-resolution spectra for stars selected to sample Galactocentric distances from 0.5 to 100 kpc. In combination with stellar targets from SDSS-I, and the recently completed SEGUE-2 program, executed as part of SDSS-III, the total sample of SDSS spectroscopy for Galactic stars comprises some 500,000 objects.

The development of the SEGUE Stellar Parameter Pipeline has enabled the determination of accurate atmospheric parameter estimates for a large fraction of these stars. Many of the stars in this data set within 5 kpc of the Sun have sufficiently well-measured proper motions to determine their full space motions, permitting examination of the nature of much more distant populations represented by members that are presently passing through the solar neighborhood. Ongoing analyses of these data are being used to draw a much clearer picture of the nature of our galaxy, and to supply targets for detailed high-resolution spectrscopic follow-up with the world's largest telescopes. Here we discuss a few highlights of recently completed and ongoing investigations with these data.

Star formation appears to be clumped into a hierarchy of structures, from giant molecular clouds down to individual cores and clusters, which are often hierarchical themselves, showing significant substructure. This has been demonstrated for our Galaxy through the application of sophisticated statistical methods, in particular the nearest-neighbour density and the minimum spanning tree (MST), to different star-forming regions. Here we present our analysis of clustered star formation as demonstrated through the detection of structures of young stellar populations in the dwarf star-forming galaxy NGC 6822.

We examine the processes responsible for the large scatter in the X-ray/optical luminosity scaling relation of early-type galaxies.

Galaxies with low-mass black holes and high accretion rates, i.e., narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxies, are important objects when addressing the issues of black hole growth and evolution, and of feeding and feedback. We have studied a sample of such objects, and find (1) that the locus of NLS1 galaxies on the MBH–σ plane appears to follow the relation of non-active galaxies after removing objects obviously dominated by outflows, (2) the presence of “blue outliers” that hint at extreme outflows as predicted by recent merger models, and (3) more subtle evidence for winds/outflows across the whole NLS1 population.

The chemical abundances in the atmosphere of a star provide unique information about the gas from which that star formed, and, modulo processes that are not important for the vast majority of stars, such as mass transfer in close binary systems, are conserved through a star's life. Correlations between chemistry and kinematics have been used for decades to trace dynamical evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy. I discuss how it should be possible to refine and extend such analyses, provided planned large-scale deep imaging surveys have matched spectroscopic surveys.

Studies of the astronomical heritage can deal with the ancient astronomical knowledge, traditions and myths, as well as with old instruments and observatories. It is urgent to work for their recovery, before they are definitely forgoten, lost or destroyed. On the cultural side, the Joint ALMA Observatory is sponsoring the study of the local cosmology and sky of the indigenous people living in the region where ALMA is currently being build. In the case of ancient instruments, several success stories already exist, the most recent one being the reconstruction of the Madrid 25ft Herschel telescope. Examples of notable instruments pending reconstruction are listed.

During the last three decades, many papers have reported the existence of a luminosity metallicity or mass metallicity (M–Z) relation for all kinds of galaxies: The more massive galaxies are also the ones with more metal-rich interstellar medium. We have obtained the mass-metallicity relation at different lookback times for the same set of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), using the stellar metallicities estimated with our spectral synthesis code starlight. Using stellar metallicities has several advantages: We are free of the biases that affect the calibration of nebular metallicities; we can include in our study objects for which the nebular metallicity cannot be measured, such as AGN hosts and passive galaxies; we can probe metallicities at different epochs of a galaxy evolution.

We have found that the M–Z relation steepens and spans a wider range in both mass and metallicity at higher redshifts for SDSS galaxies. We also have modeled the time evolution of stellar metallicity with a closed-box chemical evolution model, for galaxies of different types and masses. Our results suggest that the M–Z relation for galaxies with present-day stellar masses down to 1010M⊙ is mainly driven by the star formation history and not by inflows or outflows.

The Gaia mission will obtain accurate positions, parallaxes and proper motions for 109 object all over the sky. In addition, it will collect low resolution spectroscopy in the optical range for ~109 objects, stars, galaxies, and QSOs. Parameters of those objects are expected to be part of the final Catalog. Complete and up-to-date libraries of synthetic stellar spectra are needed to train the algorithms to classify this huge amount of data. Here we focus on the use of the synthetic libraries of spectra calculated by the Gaia community to derive grids of Single Stellar Populations as building blocks of population synthesis models.

Accretion onto the massive black hole at the centre of a galaxy can feed energy and momentum into its surroundings via radiation, winds, and jets. Feedback due to radiation pressure can lock the mass of the black hole onto the MBH–σ relation, and shape the final stellar bulge of the galaxy. Feedback due to the kinetic power of jets can prevent massive galaxies greatly increasing their stellar mass by heating gas, which would otherwise cool radiatively. The mechanisms involved in cosmic feedback are discussed and illustrated with observations.

Galaxies are complex non-linear systems, evolving on all time-scales. Isolating whatever set of physical processes was important at each major phase of their evolution requires artefacts which resolve the timescales of dominant physical processes. These are the chemical elements, and stellar kinematics. I consider what surveys are required to make progress in Galaxy evolution mapping, in the era of Gaia.

The passively evolving stellar population in elliptical galaxies (Es) provides a continuous source of fuel for accretion on the central supermassive black hole (SMBH), which is 1) extended over the entire galaxy life (but declining with cosmic time), 2) linearly proportional to the stellar mass of the host spheroid, 3) summing up to a total gas mass that is > 100 times larger than the currently observed SMBH masses, 4) available independently of merging events. The main results of numerical simulations of Es with central SMBH, in which a physically based implementation of radiative and mechanical feedback effects is considered, are presented.

NGC 4852 is a moderately compact cluster centered at α2000 = 13 : 00 : 09; δ = −59 : 36 : 48, located near the center of an Hα superring. This cluster forms part of an extended region including young stellar aggregates inside a circle with a radius of 3 degrees, where many show an abundance of emission line stars. In the field of this cluster, two stars of known type exist: Wray 15–1039 (emission-line object) and CD −58:4845 (emission-line star). We do not yet know whether the Be phase is transient or whether it is just what randomly happens in some hot stars. It appears that Be star may be found even in clusters as old as 70 Myr with a high occurrence rate in clusters of 25–27 Myr old. A recent photometric survey in NGC 4852 down to V = 22 – 23 mag established that NGC 4852 is about 200 – 250 Myr old, located at 1.1 kpc from the Sun and with a mean E(B − V) = 0.45 mag. Since the presence of potential Be-type stars in the cluster area suggests it may be a very young object instead of moderately old, we decided to carry out spectroscopy for 33 selected stars and CCD UBVI photometry for the bright objects in the cluster area. This way, we attempt to clarify their evolutionary state and include them in the framework of emission-line stars and open clusters. From our analysis, we agree with the cluster distance and reddening determined by earlier studies, but we derive that the age of NGC 4852 is younger than 40 Myr.

The Islamic society has great ties to astronomy. Its main religious customs (start of the Islamic month, direction of prayer, and the five daily prayers) are all related to two main celestial objects: the Sun and the Moon. First, the start of any Islamic month is related to the actual seeing of the young crescent after the new Moon. Second, the direction of prayer, i.e., praying towards Mecca, is related to the determination of the zenith point in Mecca. Third, the proper time for the five daily prayers is related to the motion of the Sun. Everyone in the society is directly concerned by these customs. This is to say that the major impetus for the growth of Islamic astronomy came from these three main religious observances which presented an assortment of problems in mathematical astronomy. To observe these three customs, a new set of astronomical observations were needed and this helped the development of the Islamic observatory. There is a claim that it was first in Islam that the astronomical observatory came into real existence. The Islamic observatory was a product of needs and values interwoven into the Islamic society and culture. It is also considered as a true representative and an integral par of the Islamic civilisation. Since astronomy interested not only men of science, but also the rulers of the Islamic empire, several observatories have flourished. The observatories of Baghdad, Cairo, Córdoba, Toledo, Maragha, Samarqand and Istanbul acquired a worldwide reputation throughout the centuries. This paper will discuss the two most important observatories (Maragha and Samarqand) in terms of their instruments and discoveries that contributed to the establishment of these scientific institutions.

Quasar feedback has been invoked as a major mechanism for influencing large-scale cosmological structure. To quantify to what extent they affect the real universe, one needs to measure the mechanical energy output of quasars and assess the ability of this energy to produce the feedback. We have developed an observational/modeling program that has yielded the first reliable kinetic luminosity determinations of quasar broad absorption line (BAL) outflows, and have demonstrated that energetically they are indeed a major contributor to AGN feedback.

To present a summary of IAU Symposium 265 it is perhaps best to first step back and ask the question “Why did we meet in Rio to discuss chemical abundances?”. Part of the scientific rationale was to host a meeting that brought together researchers who probe chemical abundances and chemical evolution in all of the different astrophysical environments. All meetings should be planned such that they have an outcome and, with such a diverse set of abundance specialists brought together in one place to talk about their favorite topics, the stated outcome for IAUS265 was to provide, within our current understanding of the universe, a unified picture of the production of chemical elements over cosmic time; such a view is what I think of as cosmochemistry.

We study the effect of ram pressure stripping (RPS) on the colours, cold gas content and star formation of galaxies in clusters, using a combination of N-Body/SPH simulations of galaxy clusters and a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation that includes the effect of RPS.