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CRIRES, the CRyogenic high-resolution InfraRed Echelle Spectrograph has been removed from the ESO's Very Large Telescope in 2014 to undergo a massive upgrade. The upgraded CRIRES+ instrument will be a cross-dispersed spectrograph; gain a tenfold increase in simultaneous wavelength coverage; have new detectors, gas cells for wavelength calibration, polarimeter unit enabling spectropolarimeteric observations; and benefit from a new Data Reduction Software.

We present the discovery of 130.87 day periodic near-infrared flux variability for the Class II T Tauri star WL 4 (= 2MASS J16271848-2429059, ISO-Oph 128). Our data are from the 2MASS Calibration Point Source Working Database, and constitute 1580 observations in J, H and K_s of a field in ρ Ophiuchus used to calibrate the 2MASS All-Sky Survey. We identify a light curve for WL 4 with eclipse amplitudes of ~0.4 mag lasting more than one-quarter the period, and color variations in J-H and H-K_s, of ~0.1 mag. The long period cannot be explained by stellar rotation. We propose that WL 4 is a triple YSO system, with an inner binary orbital period of 130.87 days. We posulate that we are observing each component of the inner binary alternately being eclipsed by a circum-binary disk with respect to our line of sight. This system will be useful in investigating terrestrial zone YSO disk properties and dynamics at ~1 Myr.

The NASA/IPAC/NExScI Star and Exoplanet Database (NStED) is a general purpose stellar archive which supports NASA planet-finding and planet-characterization goals, stellar astrophysics, and the planning of NASA and other space missions. There are two principal components of NStED: a database of 140,000 nearby stars and exoplanet-hosting stars, and an archive dedicated to high precision photometric surveys for transiting exoplanets (NStED-ETSS). We present summaries of these components. The NStED stellar database currently serves published parameters for 140,000 stars. These parameters include coordinates, multiplicity, proper motion, parallax, spectral type, multiband photometry, radial velocity, metallicity, chromospheric and coronal activity index, rotation velocity/period, infrared excess. NStED-ETSS currently serves data from the TrES survey of the Kepler field as well as dedicated photometric surveys of four stellar clusters. NStED-ETSS aims to serve both the surveys and the broader astronomical community by archiving these data and making them available in a homogeneous format., Comment: 4 pages, AIP style

A key issue of the star formation process is its independence from the environmental conditions. In particular, it is not clear whether star formation in the outer Galaxy occurs in the same way as in the inner Galaxy. We present preliminary results of the analysis of a ∼440 Ks ACIS‐Chandra observation of NGC1893, a young cluster (∼3–4 Myrs), far away from the Galactic Center with the aim to study star formation in the outer region of the Galaxy and investigate the coronal properties of the cluster stars. We detect more than 1000 X‐ray sources, most of which are likely cluster members. We present also a preliminary analysis of X‐ray variability of the cluster stars.

We present low-resolution Keck I/LRIS-ADC spectra spanning from 3200–9000 Å of six young brown dwarfs in the TW Hya Association and in Upper Sco. The optical spectral types of the sample range from M7.25–M8.75, though two have near-IR spectral types of early L-dwarfs. For four brown dwarfs in our sample, the accretion luminosity is measurable only when the image is binned over large wavelength intervals. This method extends our sensivity to accretion rate down to ~10^(−13) M_☉ yr^(−1) for brown dwarfs.

The pulsing radio emission detected from ultracool dwarfs can be used as a powerful diagnostic of magnetic field strengths and topologies at and below the substellar boundary. Studies thus far have confirmed magnetic field strengths of 3 kG for two late M dwarfs and 1.7 kG for an L3.5 dwarf, the latter being the first confirmation of kG magnetic fields for an L dwarf. Ongoing long term monitoring of the radio pulses will also investigate the stability of the associated large‐scale magnetic fields over timescales > 1 year. We also present the preliminary results of a lengthy radio monitoring campaign of the rapidly rotating M4 star V374 Peg, with the resulting light curves phased with magnetic maps previously obtained through Zeeman Doppler Imaging. The radio emission from V374 Peg is strongly modulated by the large scale dipolar magnetic field, with two clear peaks in the radio light curve per period of rotation, occurring when the dipolar field lies in the plane of the sky. These results provide strong evidence that the electron cyclotron maser instability plays a pivotal role in the production of quiescent radio emission from V374 Peg, representing a significant departure from the accepted model of gyrosynchrotron emission as the dominant source of quiescent radio emission from active M dwarfs.

We present recent progress on quantitative estimation of stellar ages using ind icators such as theoretical evolutionary tracks, rotation, rotation-driven chrom ospheric and coronal activity, and lithium depletion. Our focus is on roughly so lar-mass and solar-metallicity stars younger than the Sun. We attempt to charac terize the systematic and random error sources and then derive "best" ages alo ng with the dispersion in age arising among the various age estimation methods. Our main application of these techniques is to the evolution of debris disks., Comment: 4 pages; to appear in "Cool Stars XV" published by AIP Conference Series (online only)