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The Alhambra Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera, ALFOSC, is provided by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA) under a joint agreement with the University of Copenhagen and NOT. With a field of view of 6.4 x 6.4 arcminutes in imaging mode, it can also be used for low/medium resolution spectroscopy, and polarimetry. In this talk I present a selection of scientific results to which ALFOSC has contributed in the last years, and that demonstrate the success of the combination of instrument and telescope.

The Ly$α$ emission is an important tracer of neutral gas in a circum-galactic medium (CGM) around high-z QSOs. The origin of Lya emission around QSOs is still under debate which has significant implications for galaxy formation and evolution. In this paper, we study Ly$α$ nebulae around two high redshift QSOs, SDSS J141935.58+525710.7 at $z=3.218$ (hereafter QSO1) and SDSS J141813.40+525240.4 at $z=3.287$ (hereafter QSO2), from the miniJPAS survey within the AEGIS field. Using the contiguous narrow-band (NB) images from the miniJPAS survey and SDSS spectra, we analyzed their morphology, nature, and origin. We report the serendipitous detection of double-core Ly\al\ morphology around two QSOs which is rarely seen among other QSOs. The separations of the two Ly\al~cores are 11.07 $\pm$ 2.26 kpcs (1.47 $\pm$ 0.3$^{\prime\prime}$) and 9.73 $\pm$ 1.55 kpcs (1.31 $\pm$ 0.21$^{\prime\prime}$) with Ly$α$~line luminosities of $\sim$ 3.35 $\times 10^{44}$ erg s $^{-1} $ and $\sim$ 6.99 $\times$ 10$^{44}$ erg s $^{-1}$ for QSO1 and QSO2, respectively. The miniJPAS NB images show evidence of extended Ly$α$ and CIV morphology for both QSOs and extended HeII morphology for QSO1. These two QSOs may be potential candidates for the new enormous Lyman alpha nebula (ELAN) found from the miniJPAS survey due to their extended morphology in the shallow depth and relatively high Ly$α$ luminosities. We suggest that galactic outflows are the major powering mechanism for the double-core Ly$α$ morphology. Considering the relatively shallow exposures of miniJPAS, the objects found here could be the tip of the iceberg of a promising number of such objects that will be uncovered in the upcoming full J-PAS survey and deep IFU observations with 8-10m telescopes will be essential for constraining the underlying physical mechanism that is responsible for the double-cored morphology., Five figures and two tables (Accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysics)

Properties of LINERs.

We present deep surface photometry of a volume--limited sample of 21 UM emission line galaxies in broadband optical UBVRI and near infra-red (NIR) HKs filters. The sample comprises 19 blue compact galaxies (BCGs) and two spirals. For some targets the exposure times are the deepest to date. For the BCG UM462 we observe a previously undetected second disk component beyond a surface brightness level of mu_B=26 mag arcsec^{-2}. This is a true low surface brightness component with central surface brightness mu_0=24.1 mag arcsec^{-2} and scale length h_r=1.5 kpc. All BCGs are dwarfs, with M_B>=-18, and very compact, with an average scale length of h_r~1 kpc. We separate the burst and host populations for each galaxy and compare them to stellar evolutionary models with and without nebular emission contribution. We also measure the A_{180} asymmetry in all filters and detect a shift from optical to NIR in the average asymmetry of the sample. This shift seems to be correlated with the morphological class of the BCGs. Using the color-asymmetry relation, we identify five BCGs in the sample as mergers, which is confirmed by their morphological class. Though clearly separated from normal galaxies in the concentration-asymmetry parameter space, we find that it is not possible to distinguish luminous starbursting BCGs from the merely star forming low luminosity BCGs., 48 pages, 39 figures, submitted

[Abridged] We present deep optical and near-infrared UBVRIHKs imaging data for 24 blue compact galaxies (BCGs). The sample contains luminous dwarf and intermediate-mass BCGs which are predominantly metal-poor, although a few have near-solar metallicities. We have analyzed isophotal and elliptical integration surface brightness and color profiles, extremely deep (mu_B, 61 pages, 45 figures, submitted

We present new photometric and spectroscopic data for the galaxies in the compact group known as Stephan's Quintet. We find the strongest evidence for dynamical perturbation in the spiral component NGC 7319. Most of the damage was apparently caused by nearby NGC 7320C which passed through the group a few × 108 years ago. NGC 7318B is a spiral galaxy that shows evidence consistent with being in the early stages of a collision with the group. NGC 7317 and 18A are either elliptical galaxies or the stripped bulges of former spiral components. They show no evidence of past or present merger activity but are embedded in a luminous halo which suggests that they are interacting with the other members of the group. The low redshift galaxy NGC 7320 is most likely a late type, dwarf spiral projected along the same line of sight as the interacting quartet., This research was partly supported by DGICYT (Spain) grant PB93-0139. I.M. acknowledges financial support from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia through the grant EX94 08826734.