The Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre: goals and current status

The Observatorio Astrofsico de Javalambre in Spain is a new astronomical facility particularly conceived for carrying out large sky surveys with two unprecedented telescopes of unusually large elds of view: the JST/T250, a 2.55m telescope of 3deg eld of view, and the JAST/T80, an 83cm telescope of 2deg eld of view. The most immediate objective of the two telescopes for the next years is carrying out two unique photometric surveys of several thousands square degrees, J-PAS and J-PLUS, each of them with a wide range of scientic applications, like e.g. large structure cosmology and Dark...

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T80Cam: the wide field camera for the OAJ 83-cm telescope

The Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ) is a new astronomical facility located at the Sierra de Javalambre (Teruel, Spain) whose primary role will be to conduct all-sky astronomical surveys. The OAJ facility will have two wide-field telescopes: the JST/T250; a 2.55-m telescope with a 3° diameter field of view (FoV), and the JAST/T80; an 0.83-m telescope with a 2° diameter FoV. First light instrumentation is being designed to exploit the survey capabilities of the OAJ telescopes. This paper describes the T80Cam, a wide-field camera that will be installed at the Cassegrain...

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OSIRIS tunable imager and spectrograph for the GTC: from design to commissioning

OSIRIS (Optical System for Imaging and low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy) was the optical Day One instrument for the 10.4m Spanish telescope GTC. It is installed at the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos (La Palma, Spain). This instrument has been operational since March-2009 and covers from 360 to 1000 nm. OSIRIS observing modes include direct imaging with tunable and conventional filters, long slit and low resolution spectroscopy. OSIRIS wide field of view and high efficiency provide a powerful tool for the scientific exploitation of GTC. OSIRIS was developed by a...

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Signore e Signori, il cielo!

L’apertura pubblica del 24 novembre non sarà effettuata; al suo posto, a partire dalle ore 17:00, si effettuerà una manifestazione, presso la chiesa di S. Pietro in Vincoli, dal titolo “Signore e Signori il cielo” durante la quale il socio Domenico Ienna terrà una conferenza dal titolo "Letture e scritture del Cosmo da Terra e dallo Spazio Note storico-antropologiche su oggetti e attori relativi”. Inoltre saranno lette poesie con tema “il cielo” ed il coro “Franco Potenza” terrà un concerto di “composizioni colte e folcloristiche”. Auditorium “S. Pietro in Vincoli” di Frasso Sabino...

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Getting to know the cataclysmic variable beneath the nova eruption

The eruption of a (classical) nova is widely accepted to be a recurrent event in the lifetime of a cataclysmic binary star. In-between eruptions the system should therefore behave as a "normal" cataclysmic variable (CV), i.e. according to its characteristic properties like the mass-transfer rate or the strength of the magnetic field of the white dwarf. How important are these characteristics for the nova eruption itself, i.e. which type of systems preferably undergo a nova eruption? This question could in principle be addressed by comparing the post-nova systems with the general CV...

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