β Cephei variables are the most prominent pulsators among the massive stars on the upper main sequence, extending into the class of the rare hybrid β Cephei-SPB pulsators in the overlap region with the instability strip of the Slowly Pulsating B-stars. While the κ-mechanism has been identified as the driver of the pulsations, a comprehensive explanation of the excitation of the observed p- and g-modes is still lacking. In particular, the instability regions for these main-sequence B-type pulsators are still not fully consistent with any current opacity calculations. We have determined tight observational constraints on the chemical composition of a sample of β Cephei and hybrid pulsators in the solar neighbourhood, covering all elements with abundances log (X/H) + 12 > 7.3. The star sample turns out to be chemically homogeneous, with a metallicity Z ≈ 0.014 and a non-solar abundance mix. The availability of accurate and precise abundances eliminates one of the two variables in the opacity calculations for asteroseismic applications, allowing to focus on (missing) atomic data.

We report the results of infrared spectroscopic observations of embedded high-mass young stellar objects in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The CH3OH ice absorption band as well as the 3.47 μm absorption band are detected toward the embedded sources in the LMC. The properties of these spectral bands in the low metallicity environment are investigated based on comparisons with Galactic embedded sources.

GD 358 is the brightest (mv=13.7) and best studied helium atmosphere white dwarf pulsator. We present an analysis based on over 1000 hours of observations spanning 2007-2014 as well as archival data going back to 1982. From the complete data set, we identify a total of 27 independent frequencies and fit 14 of them as m=0 modes in our asteroseismic analysis. We add GD358 to a set of helium atmosphere white dwarfs fitted with similar models. With this consistent set, we can see a trend in the thickness of the pure helium layer that are quantitatively consistent with time-dependent diffusion calculations.

We highlight the recent experimental results on laser-driven radiative shock waves of astrophysical interests using kJ PALS laser facility. The generated shock is probed instantaneously by X-ray laser (λ = 21.2 nm) showing an unambiguous shock structure that includes both the post-shock and the precursor.

We are trying to reduce the largest uncertainties in using white dwarf stars as Galactic chronometers by understanding the details of carbon crystalliazation that currently result in a 1–2 Gyr uncertainty in the ages of the oldest white dwarf stars. We expect the coolest white dwarf stars to have crystallized interiors, but theory also predicts hotter white dwarf stars, if they are massive enough, will also have some core crystallization. BPM 37093 is the first discovered of only a handful of known massive white dwarf stars that are also pulsating DAV, or ZZ Ceti, variables. Our approach is to use the pulsations to constrain the core composition and amount of crystallization. Here we report our analysis of 4 hours of continuous time series spectroscopy of BPM 37093 with Gemini South combined with simultaneous time-series photometry from Mt. John (New Zealand), SAAO, PROMPT, and Complejo Astronomico El Leoncito (CASLEO, Argentina).

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is an infrared-optimized astrophysics observatory to be launched in 2018. JWST is designed to find and study the first galaxies that formed in the early universe, to peer through dusty clouds to see star and planet formation at high spatial resolution, to obtain spectra for characterizing exoplanet atmospheres, and of rocky and icy bodies throughout the Solar System. Laboratory Astrophysics needs are related to molecular/solid data for exoplanet atmospheres and rocky/icy surfaces in the Solar System.

Recently Entoto observatory and research Center launched two 1-m twining telescopes, located on the Entoto mountain in the suburb of Addis Ababa. These telescopes, equipped with four CCDs and echelle spectrograph, will be used for observations of the different types of variable stars, X-ray binaries, double stars, star clusters, exo-planets etc.

We present the results of our search for planets around subdwarf B stars. We look for wobbles of the sdB stars seen as sinusoidal variations of the pulsation periods. For a p-mode dominated pulsating sdB star we did not find any signatures of a companion and we marked KIC 10139564 to be a single star. In the case of the g-mode dominated objects the method turned out to inefficient not leading to any conclusion on the planet existence.

Classical Cepheids are radially pulsating stars that enable important tests of stellar evolution and play a crucial role in the calibration of the local Hubble constant. ℓ Carinae is a particularly well-known distance calibrator, being the closest long-period (P ~ 35.5 d) Cepheid and subtending the largest angular diameter. We have carried out an unprecedented observing program to investigate whether recently discovered cycle-to-cycle changes (modulations) of ℓ Carinae's radial velocity (RV) variability are mirrored by its variability in angular size. To this end, we have secured a fully contemporaneous dataset of high-precision RVs and high-precision angular diameters. Here we provide a concise summary of our project and report preliminary results. We confirm the modulated nature of the RV variability and find tentative evidence of cycle-to-cycle differences in ℓ Car's maximal angular diameter. Our analysis is exploring the limits of state-of-the-art instrumentation and reveals additional complexity in the pulsations of Cepheids. If confirmed, our result suggests a previously unknown pulsation cycle dependence of projection factors required for determining Cepheid distances via the Baade-Wesselink technique.

We revisit a group of OGLE-III Cepheids that exhibit nearby double peaks in their periodograms using a technique of statistics called kernel modelling. We investigate the phenomenology of these Cepheids (termed twin-peak Cepheids in this paper) in more detail by comparing a sample of 29 LMC Cepheids that exhibit twin frequency peaks with 24 other Cepheids that do not. Using the kernel technique, we investigate light curve variability as a function of time, revealing both frequency and amplitude modulations. We present the preliminary results of our study in progress, which suggests a complex interplay between the two types of modulations and their detectability via twin peaks in the periodogram. The study reveals the potential of the kernel technique to help theory and modelling with detailed data analyses, capable of tracing fine time-dependent variations of the phenomenology of pulsations for objects of surveys or observation campaigns producing sufficiently dense time sampling.

The gravity modes present in γ Doradus stars probe the deep stellar interiors and are thus of particular interest in asteroseismology. The MUSICIAN programme at the University of Canterbury has been successfully identifying frequencies and pulsation modes in many γ Doradus stars using hundreds of precise, high resolution spectroscopic observations obtained with the 1.0 m telescope and HERCULES spectrograph at the Mt John Observatory in New Zealand. In this paper we present a summary of our spectroscopic frequency and mode identifications. Of particular interest from our spectroscopic analyses are: the prevalence of (ℓ, m) = 1, 1 modes in many γ Dor stars; the importance of stellar rotation in the interpretation of the frequency and mode identification; and finally, possible evidence of wave leakage in one of these stars.

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) at the Xinglong observatory in China is a 4-m telescope equipped with 4,000 optical fibres. In 2010, we initiated the LAMOST-Kepler project which aimed at collecting low-resolution spectra of stars from the Kepler Input Catalog covering uniformly the Kepler field of view. The first round of the LAMOST-Kepler project has been completed in September 2014 resulting in more than 100,000 low-resolution spectra. We used those data to derive the effective temperature, the surface gravity, and the mean metallicity of our targets, as well as to detect fast rotators, and to identify emission-line stars. Our results are consistent with those reported in the literature and derived from high-resolution spectroscopy. The second round of the LAMOST-Kepler project will allow to improve the coverage of the Kepler field and to repeat observations of selected targets.

Following the LAMOST Spectroscopic Survey and Xuyi's Photometric Survey of the Galactic anti-center (GAC), we plan to conduct a time-domain survey of GAC to study the variable sky using Nanshan 1m telescope. The survey will be conducted during winter (in Nov., Dec., and Jan.). The first goal of the survey is to cover 270 sq.deg. of sky area in three years. The survey intends to detect some strong transient events of stars and find some short time-scale variable stars of different types. In this paper, we introduce the survey and present the preliminary results already carried out.

Hot subdwarf B stars (sdBs) are the stripped cores of red giants located at the bluest extension of the horizontal branch. Several different kinds of pulsators are found among those stars. The mechanism that drives those pulsations is well known and the theoretically predicted instability regions for both the short-period p-mode and the long-period g-mode pulsators match the observed distributions fairly well. However, it remains unclear why only a fraction of the sdB stars pulsate, while stars with otherwise very similar parameters do not show pulsations. From an observers perspective I review possible candidates for the missing parameter that makes sdB stars pulsate or not.

The availability of asteroseismic constraints for a large sample of red-giant stars from the CoRoT and Kepler missions paves the way for various statistical studies of the seismic properties of stellar populations. We use a detailed spectroscopic study of 19 CoRoT red-giant stars (Morel et al. 2014) to compare theoretical stellar evolution models to observations of the open cluster NGC 6633 and field stars. This study is already published in Lagarde et al. (2015)

Rich regular frequency patterns were found in the Fourier spectra of low-amplitude δ Scuti stars observed by CoRoT satellite (see Paparó et al. in prep.). The CoRoT observations are, however, influenced by the disturbing effect of the South Atlantic Anomaly. The effect is marginal for high amplitude variable stars but it could be critical in the case of low amplitude variables, especially if the frequency range of the intrinsic variation overlaps the interval of the instrumental frequencies. Some tests were carried out both on synthetic and real data for distinguishing technical and stars' frequencies.

Los Alamos National Laboratory has calculated a new generation of radiative opacities (OPLIB data using the ATOMIC code) for elements with atomic number Z = 1-30 with improved physics input, updated atomic data, and finer temperature grid to replace the Los Alamos LEDCOP opacities released in the year 2000. We calculate the evolution of standard solar models including these new opacities, and compare with models evolved using the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory OPAL opacities (Iglesias & Rogers 1996). We use the solar abundance mixture of Asplund et al. 2009. The Los Alamos ATOMIC opacities (Colgan et al. 2013a, 2013b, 2015) have steeper opacity derivatives than those of OPAL for temperatures and densities of the solar interior radiative zone. We compare the calculated nonadiabatic solar oscillation frequencies and solar interior sound speed to observed frequencies and helioseismic inferences. The calculated sound-speed profiles are similar for models evolved using either the updated Iben evolution code (see Guzik & Mussack 2010), or the MESA evolution code (Paxton et al. 2015). The LANL ATOMIC opacities partially mitigate the ‘solar abundance problem’.

The preliminary results of an analysis of the time-series photometric data of binary star GSC 02049-01164 (ROTSE1 J164341.65+251748.1) are presented. GSC 02049-01164 was observed for eight consecutive nights with the 0.84-m telescope of the San Pedro Martir Observatory in Mexico. The light curve of GSC 02049-01164 is typical of those of W UMa type binary stars. In an effort to gain a better understanding of the binary system and determine its physical properties we have analyzed the light curve with the software PHOEBE V.0 0.31a. We have found that GSC 02049-01164 binary system has a mass ratio of ~ 0.42, an inclination of ~ 85 degrees, a semi-major axis of ~ 2.24 R⊙. It is likely that the two stellar components are in contact, with a degree of overcontact of 13%. The physical parameters of the stellar components have been derived.