Omega Prime is a wide-field near-infrared camera for the prime focus of the Calar Alto 3.5 m telescope in Spain. The detector is a 1024 x 1024 pixel HAWAII array made by Rockwell. The image scale is 0.4 arcsec/pixel, giving a field of view of 6.8 x 6.8 arcmin. In order to maximize the throughput, the optics were designed as a prime focus corrector with only three lenses. This simple design without a cold pupil provides an excellent image quality over the entire field of view. To reduce thermal background at wavelengths longer than 2.2 mu m, Omega Prime has a series of cold internal baffles and an additional toroidal mirror outside the dewar. This annular reflector causes detector pixels to "see" mostly the cold interior of the camera. The camera has been in operation since May 1996 and has been used for a variety of scientific programs, including a very deep K' survey covering 1000 square arcmin to a 5 sigma limit for point-sources of 20.5 magnitude.

Observations indicate that a continuous supply of gas is needed to maintain observed star formation rates in large, discy galaxies. To fuel star formation, gas must reach the inner regions of such galaxies. Despite its crucial importance for galaxy evolution, how and where gas joins galaxies is poorly constrained observationally and rarely explored in fully cosmological simulations. To investigate gas accretion in the vicinity of galaxies at low redshift, we analyse the FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in simulations for 4 Milky Way mass galaxies (M-halo similar to 10(12)M(circle dot)), focusing on simulations with cosmic ray physics. We find that at z similar to 0, gas approaches the disc with angular momentum similar to the gaseous disc edge and low radial velocities, piling-up near the edge and settling into full rotational support. Accreting gas moves predominately parallel to the disc and joins largely in the outskirts. Immediately prior to joining the disc, trajectories briefly become more vertical on average. Within the disc, gas motion is complex, being dominated by spiral arm induced oscillations and feedback. However, time and azimuthal averages show slow net radial infall with transport speeds of 1-3 km s(-1) and net mass fluxes through the disc of similar to M-circle dot yr(-1), comparable to the galaxies' star formation rates and decreasing towards galactic centre as gas is sunk into star formation. These rates are slightly higher in simulations without cosmic rays (1-7 km s(-1), similar to 4-5 M-circle dot yr(-1)). We find overall consistency of our results with observational constraints and discuss prospects of future observations of gas flows in and around galaxies.

The Las Campanas Infrared Survey Camera is a near-infrared (1.0-2.5 mum), wide- area instrument used to detect and measure the photometric properties of galaxies out to large redshifts, z > 2. The camera, a modified Offner 1 : 1 reimaging optical system, is mounted at the f/7.5 focus of the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope. The detectors are four Rockwell 1024 x 1024 HgCdTe (HAWAII) arrays operating at a scale of 0."20 pixel(-1). With four telescope pointings, the instrument produces a pipelined mosaic of J, H, or Ks images 13' x 13' on the sky, with a measured point-spread function as good as 0."38 FWHM. The good imaging quality results in part from fast tip-tilt guiding on stars within a 9' x 9' field centered on the optical axis of the telescope. Appropriately bright guide stars are found within 2 s from a catalog of 5 x 10(7) stars and presented as a finding chart to the observer. The optical, mechanical, and thermal design choices and their associated engineering implementations are discussed in some detail. The detector readout electronics, the automatic data acquisition and control system, and our data reduction pipeline are also described. The design goals of the camera excellent imaging quality and throughput, low flexure and internal background, and 5 Hz on-axis guiding, are all realized and quantified.

We obtained Keck/DEIMOS spectra of 556 individual red giant branch stars in four spectroscopic fields spanning 13-31 projected kpc along the northeast (NE) shelf of M31. We present the first detection of a complete wedge pattern in the space of projected M31-centric radial distance versus line-of-sight velocity for this feature, which includes the returning stream component of the shelf. This wedge pattern agrees with expectations of a tidal shell formed in a radial merger and provides strong evidence in favor of predictions of Giant Stellar Stream (GSS) formation models in which the NE shelf originates from the second orbital wrap of the tidal debris. The observed concentric wedge patterns of the NE, west (W), and southeast (SE) shelves corroborate this interpretation independently of the models. We do not detect a kinematical signature in the NE shelf region corresponding to an intact progenitor core, favoring GSS formation models in which the progenitor is completely disrupted. The shelf's photometric metallicity ([Fe/H](phot)) distribution implies that it is dominated by tidal material, as opposed to the phase-mixed stellar halo or the disk. The metallicity distribution ([Fe/H](phot) = -0.42 +/- 0.01) also matches the GSS, and consequently the W and SE shelves, further supporting a direct physical association between the tidal features.

PANIC (Persson's Auxiliary Nasmyth Infrared Camera) is a near-infrared camera designed to operate at any one of the f/11 folded ports of the 6.5m Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. The instrument is built around a simple, all-refractive design that reimages the Magellan focal plane to a plate scale of 0.125" pixel(-1) onto a Rockwell 1024x1024 HgCdTe detector. The design goals for PANIC included excellent image quality to sample the superb seeing measured with the Magellan telescopes, high throughput, a relatively short construction time, and low cost. PANIC has now been in regular operation for over one year and has proved to be highly reliable and produce excellent images. The best recorded image quality has been similar to0.2" FWHM.

In the era of large-scale spectroscopic surveys in the Local Group, we can explore using chemical abundances of halo stars to study the star formation and chemical enrichment histories of the dwarf galaxy progenitors of the Milky Way (MW) and M31 stellar halos. In this paper, we investigate using the chemical abundance ratio distributions (CARDs) of seven stellar halos from the Latte suite of FIRE-2 simulations. We attempt to infer galaxies' assembly histories by modeling the CARDs of the stellar halos of the Latte galaxies as a linear combination of template CARDs from disrupted dwarfs, with different stellar masses M (& x22c6;) and quenching times t (100). We present a method for constructing these templates using present-day dwarf galaxies. For four of the seven Latte halos studied in this work, we recover the mass spectrum of accreted dwarfs to a precision of t (100), we find the residuals of 20%-30% for five of the seven simulations. We discuss the failure modes of this method, which arise from the diversity of star formation and chemical enrichment histories that dwarf galaxies can take. These failure cases can be robustly identified by the high model residuals. Although the CARDs modeling method does not successfully infer the assembly histories in these cases, the CARDs of these disrupted dwarfs contain signatures of their unusual formation histories. Our results are promising for using CARDs to learn more about the histories of the progenitors of the MW and M31 stellar halos.

Context. Massive Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars dominate the radiative and mechanical energy budget of galaxies and probe a critical phase in the evolution of massive stars prior to core collapse. It is not known whether core He-burning WR stars (classical WR; cWR) form predominantly through wind stripping (w-WR) or binary stripping (b-WR). Whereas spectroscopy of WR binaries has so-far largely been avoided because of its complexity, our study focuses on the 44 WR binaries and binary candidates of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC; metallicity Z approximate to 0.5 Z(circle dot)), which were identified on the basis of radial velocity variations, composite spectra, or high X-ray luminosities.

Stars stripped of their envelopes from interaction with a binary companion emit a significant fraction of their radiation as ionizing photons. They are potentially important stellar sources of ionizing radiation, however, they are still often neglected in spectral synthesis simulations or simulations of stellar feedback. In anticipating the large datasets of galaxy spectra from the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, we modeled the radiative contribution from stripped stars by using detailed evolutionary and spectral models. We estimated their impact on the integrated spectra and specifically on the emission rates of HI-, He I-, and He II-ionizing photons from stellar populations. We find that stripped stars have the largest impact on the ionizing spectrum of a population in which star formation halted several Myr ago. In such stellar populations, stripped stars dominate the emission of ionizing photons, mimicking a younger stellar population in which massive stars are still present. Our models also suggest that stripped stars have harder ionizing spectra than massive stars. The additional ionizing radiation, with which stripped stars contribute affects observable properties that are related to the emission of ionizing photons from stellar populations. In co-eval stellar populations, the ionizing radiation from stripped stars increases the ionization parameter and the production efficiency of hydrogen ionizing photons. They also cause high values for these parameters for about ten times longer than what is predicted for massive stars. The effect on properties related to non-ionizing wavelengths is less pronounced, such as on the ultraviolet continuum slope or stellar contribution to emission lines. However, the hard ionizing radiation from stripped stars likely introduces a characteristic ionization structure of the nebula, which leads to the emission of highly ionized elements such as O2+ and C3+. We, therefore, expect that the presence of stripped stars affects the location in the BPT diagram and the diagnostic ratio of O hi to O II nebular emission lines. Our models are publicly available through CDS database and on the STARBURST99 website.

Context. A majority of massive stars are part of binary systems, a large fraction of which will inevitably interact during their lives. Binary-interaction products (BiPs), that is, stars affected by such interaction, are expected to be commonly present in stellar populations. BiPs are thus a crucial ingredient in the understanding of stellar evolution.Aims. We aim to identify and characterize a statistically significant sample of BiPs by studying clusters of 10-40 Myr, an age at which binary population models predict the abundance of BiPs to be highest. One example of such a cluster is NGC 330 in the Small Magellanic Cloud.Methods. Using MUSE WFM-AO observations of NGC 330, we resolved the dense cluster core for the first time and were able to extract spectra of its entire massive star population. We developed an automated spectral classification scheme based on the equivalent widths of spectral lines in the red part of the spectrum.Results. We characterize the massive star content of the core of NGC 330, which contains more than 200 B stars, 2 O stars, 6 A-type supergiants, and 11 red supergiants. We find a lower limit on the Be star fraction of 323% in the whole sample. It increases to at least 46 +/- 10% when we only consider stars brighter than V=17 mag. We estimate an age of the cluster core between 35 and 40 Myr and a total cluster mass of

Hydrogen-rich supernovae, known as Type II (SNe II), are the most common class of explosions observed following the collapse of the core of massive stars. We used analytical estimates and population synthesis simulations to assess the fraction of SNe II progenitors that are expected to have exchanged mass with a companion prior to explosion. We estimate that 1/3 to 1/2 of SN II progenitors have a history of mass exchange with a binary companion before exploding. The dominant binary channels leading to SN II progenitors involve the merger of binary stars. Mergers are expected to produce a diversity of SN II progenitor characteristics, depending on the evolutionary timing and properties of the merger. Alternatively, SN II progenitors from interacting binaries may have accreted mass from their companion, and subsequently been ejected from the binary system after their companion exploded. We show that the overall fraction of SN II progenitors that are predicted to have experienced binary interaction is robust against the main physical uncertainties in our models. However, the relative importance of different binary evolutionary channels is affected by changing physical assumptions. We further discuss ways in which binarity might contribute to the observed diversity of SNe II by considering potential observational signatures arising from each binary channel. For supernovae which have a substantial H-rich envelope at explosion (i.e., excluding Type IIb SNe), a surviving non-compact companion would typically indicate that the supernova progenitor star was in a wide, non-interacting binary. We argue that a significant fraction of even Type II-P SNe are expected to have gained mass from a companion prior to explosion.