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We discuss the IAU resolutions B1.3, B1.4, B1.5, and B1.9 that wereadopted during the 24th General Assembly in Manchester, 2000, andprovides details on and explanations for these resolutions. It isexplained why they present significant progress over the correspondingIAU 1991 resolutions and why they are necessary in the light of presentaccuracies in astrometry, celestial mechanics, and metrology.

We have determined detailed elemental abundances and stellar ages for a sample of now 38 microlensed dwarf and subgiant stars in the Galactic bulge. Stars with sub-solar metallicities are all old and have enhanced alpha-element abundances - very similar to what is seen for local thick disk stars. The metal-rich stars on the other hand show a wide variety of stellar ages, ranging from 3-4 Gyr to 12

First results from a study into the abundance trends of oxygen in the Galactic thin and thick disks are presented. Oxygen abundances for 63nearby F and G dwarf stars, based on very high resolution spectra (R∼215 000) and high signal-to-noise (S/N>400) of the faint forbidden oxygen line at 6300Å, have been determined. Our findings can be summarized as follows: 1) at [Fe/H]<0 the oxygen trends in th

The optical design for the proposed Euro50 extremely large telescopewith integrated adaptive optics (AO) is presented. For atmosphericturbulence correction, we propose using single and dual-conjugate AOsystems working with natural and laser guide stars. The corrective shapeof the deformable mirrors (DMs) is derived from an analytical algorithmbased on minimization of the sum of the residual power

Gaia is ESA’s ambitious space astrometry mission with a foreseen launch date in early 2012. Its main objective is to perform a stellar census of the 1000 Million brightest objects in our galaxy (completeness to V=20 mag) from which an astrometric catalog of micro-arcsec level accuracy will be constructed. A key element in this endeavor is the Astrometric Global Iterative Solution (AGIS) - the math

We present a new study of deep star counts in the Local Group dwarf spheroidal (dSph) in Ursa Minor. Both the luminosity function (LF) and the color-magnitude diagram (CMD) of the unevolved stars are compared with the LF and CMD of the old, metal-poor globular cluster M92. The main sequence locations and turn-offs are identical within the errors. Since we. know from the brighter evolved stars that

The expected distributions of eclipse-depth versus period for eclipsing binaries of different luminosities are derived from large-scale population synthesis experiments. Using the rapid Hurley et al. BSE binary evolution code, we have evolved several hundred million binaries, starting from various simple input distributions of masses and orbit-sizes. Eclipse probabilities and predicted distributio

We discuss mass transfer in eccentric binaries containing a white dwarf and a neutron star (WD-NS binaries). We show that such binaries are produced from field binaries following a series of mass transfer episodes that allow the white dwarf to form before the neutron star. We predict the orbital properties of binaries similar to the observed WD-NS binary J1141+6545, and show that they will undergo

CS 22949-037 is one of the most metal-poor giants known ([Fe/H]~-4.0),and it exhibits large overabundances of carbon and nitrogen (Norris etal.). Using VLT-UVES spectra of unprecedented quality, regardingresolution and S/N ratio, covering a wide wavelength range (from lambda= 350 to 900 nm), we have determined abundances for 21 elements in thisstar over a wide range of atomic mass. The major new d

ESA's Gaia mission will provide accurate astrometric, photometric andspectroscopic data for millions of stars in the Galaxy and beyond. Wediscuss the prospects of using this vast amount of astrophysicalinformation for understanding star formation histories in the Galaxy andits immediate neighbors within the Local Group.

Book abstract: The book reviews recent observations of non-evolved and evolved binary populations in clusters and the field with special emphasis on statistical biases, incompleteness and distribution functions. Different binary types are considered: cataclysmic variables, super-soft X-ray sources, double degenerate binaries, Algol-type binaries, Be binaries, X-ray binaries, and Wolf-Rayet binarie