Twelve new species of the streptaxid snail genus Discartemon Pfeiffer, 1856 are described from southern Thailand and western Malaysia, D. afthonodontia sp. n., D. circulus sp. n., D. deprima sp. n., D. discadentus sp. n., D. discamaximus sp. n., D. expandus sp. n., D. flavacandida sp. n., D. kotanensis sp. n., and D. megalostraka sp. n. from southern Thailand, as well as D. conicus sp. n., D. e...

Recently, with the goal to study multiplicity of chemically peculiar stars, we carried out a survey of 40 stars using diffraction limited near infrared (IR) imaging with NAOS-CONICA (NACO) at the VLT. Here, we announce the detection of 27 near IR companion candidates around 25 late B-type chemically peculiar stars exhibiting strong overabundances of the chemical elements Hg and Mn in their atmo...

We introduce a novel phase retrieval method for astronomical applications based on the Nijboer-Zernike (NZ) theory of diffraction. We present a generalized NZ phase retrieval process that is not limited to small and symmetric aberrations and can therefore be directly applied to astronomical imaging instruments. We describe a practical demonstration of this novel method that was recently perform...

We report on observations aimed at searching for flux variations from the proposed IR counterpart of the Anomalous X–ray Pulsar (AXP) XTE J1810−197. These data, obtained in March 2004 with the adaptive optics camera NAOS-CONICA at the ESO VLT, show that the candidate proposed by Israel et al. (2004) was fainter by ∆H = 0.7 ± 0.2 and ∆Ks = 0.5 ± 0.1 with respect to October 2003, confirming it as...

BACKGROUND Colour degradation is a major problem in maxillofacial silicone elastomers. Recent studies have focused on colour stability and the mechanical properties of the silicone elastomers. A colour match is also essential for the acceptance of the prosthesis by the patient. The aim of this study is to assess the colour degradation of the silicone elastomer after being moulded in different c...

Context. Direct imaging using various techniques for suppressing the stellar halo nowadays achieves the contrast levels required to detect and characterize light of substellar companions at orbital distances larger than a few astronomical units from their host stars. The method nicely complements the radial velocity surveys that provide evidence that giant extrasolar planets in close-in orbits ...

We study the initial mass function (IMF) of one of the most massive Galactic star-forming regions NGC 3603 to answer a fundamental question in current astrophysics: is the IMF universal, or does it vary? Using our very deep, high angular resolution JHKSL ′ images obtained with NAOS-CONICA at the VLT at ESO, we have successfully revealed the stellar population down to the subsolar mass range in ...

We present new high angular resolution observations at near-IR wavelengths of the core of the Luminous Blue Variable η Carinae, using NAOS-CONICA at the VLT and VINCI at the VLT Interferometer (VLTI). The latter observations provide spatial information on a scale of 5 milli-arcsec or ∼11 AU at the distance of η Carinae. The present-day stellar wind of ηCarinae is resolved on a scale of several ...