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Neuhaeuser et al. (2005) presented direct imaging evidence for a sub-stellar companion to the young T Tauri star GQ Lup. Common proper motion was highly significant, but no orbital motion was detected. Faint luminosity, low gravity, and a late-M/early-L spectral type indicated that the companion is either a planet or a brown dwarf. We have monitored GQ Lup and its companion in order to detect orbital and parallactic motion and variability in its brightness. We also search for closer and fainter companions. We have taken six more images with the VLT Adaptive Optics instrument NACO from May 2005 to Feb 2007, always with the same calibration binary from Hipparcos for both astrometric and photometric calibration. By adding up all the images taken so far, we search for additional companions. The position of GQ Lup A and its companion compared to a nearby non-moving background object varies as expected for parallactic motion by about one pixel (2 \pi with parallax \pi). We could not find evidence for variability of the GQ Lup companion in the K-band (standard deviation being \pm 0.08 mag), which may be due to large error bars. No additional companions are found with deep imaging. There is now exceedingly high significance for common proper motion of GQ Lup A and its companion. In addition, we see for the first time an indication for orbital motion (about 2 to 3 mas/yr decrease in separation, but no significant change in the position angle), consistent with a near edge-on or highly eccentric orbit. We measured the parallax for GQ Lup A to be \pi = 6.4 \pm 1.9 mas (i.e. 156 \pm 50 pc) and for the GQ Lup companion to be 7.2 \pm 2.1 mas (i.e. 139 \pm 45 pc), both consistent with being in the Lupus I cloud and bound to each other., Comment: A&A in press

We show high resolution spectra of the eclipsing brown dwarf binary 2MASSJ05352184-0546085 taken at the two opposite radial velocity maxima. Comparisons of the TiO bands to model and template spectra are fully consistent with the temperatures previously derived for this system. In particular, the reversal of temperatures with mass - in which the higher-mass primary is cooler than its companion - is confirmed. We measure the projected rotation velocities of the compononents; the primary is rotating at least twice as rapidly as the secondary. At the two radial velocity maxima, Halpha emission lines of both components stick out to either sides of the Halpha central wavelength, which is dominated by nebula emission. This enables us to model the individual Halpha lines of the primary and the secondary. We find that the Halpha emission from the primary is at least 7 times stronger than the emission from the secondary. We conclude that the temperature reversal is very likely due to strong magnetic fields inhibiting convection on the primary., Comment: accepted for ApJ Letters

Relative astrometric measurements with a precision far better than 1 mas (milli-arcsec) are commonly regarded as the domain of interferometry. Pioneering work by Pravdo & Shaklan (1996), made in the optical, reached a precision of 150 micro-arcsec in direct imaging but is ultimately limited by atmospheric turbulence and differential chromatic refraction (DCR) effects. Neuhaeuser et al. (2006, 2007) demonstrated that AO assisted observations with NACO in a near-infrared narrow band filter allow measurements with a precision of ~50 muas (micro-arsec) on a 0.6 arcsec binary within one hour and are unaffected by DCR effects. This opens new possibilities for astrometric detections of extrasolar planets and the determination of their true masses. We discuss here how to improve the measurements and address the necessary calibrations., Comment: To be published in the proceedings of the 2007 ESO Instrument Calibration Workshop

We show individual high resolution spectra of components A, B, and C of the nearby late-M type multiple system LHS 1070. Component A is a mid-M star, B and C are known to have masses at the threshold to brown dwarfs. From our spectra we measure rotation velocities and the mean magnetic field for all three components individually. We find magnetic flux on the order of several kilo-Gauss in all components. The rotation velocities of the two late-M objects B and C are similar (vsini = 16km/s), the earlier A component is spinning only at about half that rate. This suggests weakening of net rotational braking at late-M spectral type, and that the lack of slowly rotating late-M and L dwarfs is real. Furthermore, we found that magnetic flux in the B component is about twice as strong as in component C at similar rotation rate. This indicates that rotational braking is not proportional to magnetic field strength in fully convective objects, and that a different field topology is the reason for the weak braking in low mass objects., Comment: accepted for publication as A&A Letter

The Variable Star One-shot Project (VSOP) is aimed at (1) providing the variability type and spectral type of all unstudied variable stars, (2) process, publish, and make the data available as automatically as possible, and (3) generate serendipitous discoveries. This first paper describes the project itself, the acquisition of the data, the dataflow, the spectroscopic analysis and the on-line availability of the fully calibrated and reduced data. We also present the results on the 221 stars observed during the first semester of the project. We used the high-resolution echelle spectrographs HARPS and FEROS in the ESO La Silla Observatory (Chile) to survey known variable stars. Once reduced by the dedicated pipelines, the radial velocities are determined from cross correlation with synthetic template spectra, and the spectral types are determined by an automatic minimum distance matching to synthetic spectra, with traditional manual spectral typing cross-checks. The variability types are determined by manually evaluating the available light curves and the spectroscopy. In the future, a new automatic classifier, currently being developed by members of the VSOP team, based on these spectroscopic data and on the photometric classifier developed for the COROT and Gaia space missions, will be used. We confirm or revise spectral types of 221 variable stars from the GCVS. We identify 26 previously unknown multiple systems, among them several visual binaries with spectroscopic binary individual components. We present new individual results for the multiple systems V349 Vel and BC Gru, for the composite spectrum star V4385 Sgr, for the T-Tauri star V1045 Sco, and for DM Boo which we re-classify as a BY Draconis variable. The complete data release can be accessed via the VSOP web site., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A

The Variable Star One-shot Project (VSOP) aimed at providing to the world-wide stellar community the necessary one-shot spectrum of unstudied variable stars, too often classified as such by an analysis of photometric data only. The VSOP has established an new kind of observational model, where all steps from observations to spectral analysis, are automatized (or are underway to be fully automatized). The project is centralized on a collaborative wiki website. The VSOP operational model is very successful, data is continously flowing and being analyszed, and VSOP is now a worldwide open collaboration of people with very different and complementary skills and expertise. The idea of a central wiki website has been extended by one of us to propose a new service to the whole astronomical community, called Wikimbad. Wikimbad is an open wiki website aimed at collecting, organizing and making publicly available all kind of reduced and published astronomical data. Its strengths and a comparison with the Virtual Observatory are discussed. See: http://vsop.sc.eso.org and http://wikimbad.org, Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the workshop help at ESA, in March 2007, entitled "Astronomical Spectroscopy and Virtual Observatory"

We present new results from our ongoing multiplicity study of exoplanet host stars, carried out with the infrared camera SofI at ESO-NTT. We have identified new low mass companions to the planet host stars HD101930 and HD65216. HD101930AB is a wide binary systems composed of the planet host star HD101930A and its companion HD101930B which is a M0 to M1 dwarf with a mass of about 0.7Msun separated from the primary by ~73arcsec (2200AU projected separation). HD65216 forms a hierarchical triple system, with a projected separation of 253AU (angular separation of about 7arcsec) between the planet host star HD65216A and its close binary companion HD65216BC, whose two components are separated by only ~0.17arcsec (6AU of projected separation). Two VLT-NACO images separated by 3 years confirm that this system is co-moving to the planet host star. The infrared photometry of HD65216B and C is consistent with a M7 to M8 (0.089Msun), and a L2 to L3 dwarf (0.078Msun), respectively, both close to the sub-stellar limit. An infrared spectrum with VLT-ISAAC of the pair HD65216BC, even though not resolved spatially, confirms this late spectral type. Furthermore, we present H- and K-band ISAAC infrared spectra of HD16141B, the recently detected co-moving companion of the planet host star HD16141A. The infrared spectroscopy as well as the apparent infrared photometry of HD16141B are both fully consistent with a M2 to M3 dwarf located at the distance of the planet host star., Comment: MNRAS accepted, 8 pages, 6 figures, and 1 table

We search for stellar and substellar companions of young nearby stars to investigate stellar multiplicity and formation of stellar and substellar companions. We detect common proper-motion companions of stars via multi-epoch imaging. Their companionship is finally confirmed with photometry and spectroscopy. Here we report the discovery of a new co-moving (13 sigma) stellar companion ~17.8 arcsec (350 AU in projected separation) north of the nearby star HD141272 (21 pc). With EMMI/NTT optical spectroscopy we determined the spectral type of the companion to be M3+-0.5V. The derived spectral type as well as the near infrared photometry of the companion are both fully consistent with a 0.26+-0.07 Msol dwarf located at the distance of HD141272 (21 pc). Furthermore the photometry data rules out the pre-main sequence status, since the system is consistent with the ZAMS of the Pleiades., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

The first substellar companion of possibly planetary mass around a normal star, GQ Lup, has been directly imaged (Neuhaeuser et al., 2005). Besides the unknown formation history, the mass of such an object is a criterion to decide about its true nature. We aim to determine the physical properties of the GQ Lup companion - effective temperate and surface gravity, and thus its mass independently from evolutionary models. We use the adaptive optics integral-field spectrograph SINFONI at the VLT for near-infrared spectroscopy from 1.1 to 2.5 um with a resolution of R = 2500--4000. We compare these spectra with synthetic atmospheric models (GAIA v2.0 cond). From the complete set of spectra we find a consistent effective temperature of Teff = 2600 +/- 100 K and surface gravity of log{g} = 3.7 +/- 0.5. Combined with a slightly revised luminosity of log(L/L_(\sun)) = -2.25 +/- 0.24 for the companion, we determine a radius of R = 3.50 (+1.50/-1.03) Jupiterradii and thus a mass of ~ 25 Jupitermasses. Due to the large uncertainty of the surface gravity, the mass could range from 4 to 155 Jupitermasses. By comparing the paramaters of the companion of GQ Lup to the ones of 2MASS J05352184-0546085, published by Stassun et al. (2006), we conclude that the companion to GQ Lup A has a mass lower than 36 Jupitermasses., Comment: 5 pages, accepted for publication in A&A, 2nd version: typo and one citation corrected in last section

Many planet candidates have been detected by radial velocity variations of the primary star; they are planet candidates, because of the unknown orbit inclination. Detection of the wobble in the two other dimensions, to be measured by astrometry, would yield the inclination and, hence, true mass of the companions. We aim to show that planets can be confirmed or discovered in a close visual stellar binary system by measuring the astrometric wobble of the exoplanet host star as periodic variation of the separation, even from the ground. We test the feasibility with HD 19994, a visual binary with one radial velocity planet candidate. We use the adaptive optics camera NACO at the VLT with its smallest pixel scale (13 mas) for high precision astrometric measurements. The separations measured in single 120 images taken within one night are shown to follow white noise, so that the standard deviation can be devided by the square root of the number of images to obtain the precision. In this paper we present the first results and investigate the achievable precision in relative astrometry with adaptive optics. With a careful data reduction it is possible to achieve a relative astrometric precision as low as 50 micro arc sec for a 0.6 arc sec, binary with VLT/NACO observations in one hour, the best relative astrometric precision ever achieved with a single telescope from the ground. The relative astrometric precision demonstrated here with AO at an 8-m mirror is sufficient to detect the astrometric signal of the planet HD 19994 Ab as periodic variation of the separation between HD 19994 A and B., Comment: proceedings paper for IAU Symposium on binaries at IAU Prague, August 2006 (W. Hartkopf, editor)

We report on new results of our multiplicity study and present our follow-up observations of the recently detected faint companion HD3651B, the first directly imaged T dwarf companion of an exoplanet host star., Comment: proceedings paper, 4 pages, 3 figures, IAU Symposium No. 240, "Binary Stars as Critical Tools & Tests in Contemporary Astrophysics"

In the course of our ongoing multiplicity study of exoplanet host stars we detected a faint companion located at ~43arcsec (480AU physical projected separation) north-west of its primary -- the exoplanet host star HD3651 at 11pc. The companion, HD3651B, clearly shares the proper motion of the exoplanet host star in our four images, obtained with ESO/NTT and UKIRT, spanning three years in epoch difference. The magnitude of the companion is H=16.75+-0.16mag, the faintest co-moving companion of an exoplanet host star imaged directly. HD3651B is not detected in the POSS-II B-, R- and I-band images, indicating that this object is fainter than ~20mag in the B- and R-band and fainter than \~19mag in the I-band. With the Hipparcos distance of HD3651 of 11pc, the absolute magnitude of HD3651B is about 16.5mag in the H band. Our H-band photometry and the Baraffe et al. (2003) evolutionary models yield a mass of HD3651B to be 20 to 60MJup for assumed ages between 1 and 10Gyr. The effective temperature ranges between 800 and 900K, consistent with a spectral type of T7 to T8. We conclude that HD3651B is a brown-dwarf companion, the first of its kind directly imaged as a companion of an exoplanet host star, and one of the faintest T dwarfs found in the solar vicinity (within 11pc)., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS LETTERS

The University of Hawaii Wide-Field Imager (UHWFI) is a focal compressor system designed to project the full half-degree field of the UH 2.2 m telescope onto the refurbished UH 8Kx8K CCD camera. The optics use Ohara glasses and are mounted in an oil-filled cell to minimize light losses and ghost images from the large number of internal lens surfaces. The UHWFI is equipped with a six-position filter wheel and a rotating sector blade shutter,both driven by stepper motors. The instrument saw first light in 2004 in an engineering mode. After filling the lens cell with index matching oil, integration of all software components into the user interface, tuning of the CCD performance, and the purchase of the final filter set, UHWFI is now fully commissioned at the UH 2.2 m telescope., Comment: 13 pages of text, 2 tables, 8 figures

We present new astrometric and spectroscopic data to confirm two new M/L dwarf systems, G124-62 and LHS5166, and discuss the nature of a third system (LP261-75). Age and thus mass determinations of the L dwarf companions are discussed based on various activity-age relationships of the M dwarf primaries. This publication will update the list of widely separated substellar companions to nearby stars., Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in the proceedings of the workshop "Ultralow-mass star formation and evolution", to be published in AN

In our ongoing survey for wide (sub)stellar companions of exoplanet host stars we have found 4 new co-moving stellar companions of the stars HD114729, HD16141, HD196050 and HD213240 with projected separations from 223 up to 3898AU. The companionship of HD114729B, HD196050B and HD213240C is confirmed by photometry and spectroscopy, all being early M dwarfs. The masses of the detected companions are derived from their infrared JHK magnitudes and range between 0.146 and 0.363 Msun. Our first and second epoch observations can rule out additional stellar companions around the primaries from ~200 up to ~2400 AU (S/N=10). In our survey we have found so far 6 new binaries among the exoplanet host stars. According to these new detections, the reported differences between single-star and binary-star planets with orbital periods short than 40 days remain significant in both the mass-period and eccentricity-period distribution. In contrast, all exoplanets with orbital periods longer than 100 days tend to display similar distributions., Comment: 10 pages, 16 figures, A&A accepted

We present astrometric and photometric measurements of the field binary L1 dwarf DENIS-P J1441-0945. Analysis of archival HST images and photometric parallax measurements give a distance of 34+/-7 pc and a proper motion close to that of the nearby high proper motion star G124-62. Comparison of SuperCOSMOS and 2MASS images confirms that these objects form a common proper motion pair, while spectroscopy of G124-62 shows it to be a dM4.5e star. The kinematics show that this system is a member of the Hyades supercluster. The resulting age constraints for the system are 500--800 Myr and the mass of each component of DENIS-P J1441-0945 is 0.072 (+0.010/-0.018) M_sun., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, accepted by A&A on March 25, 2005

Gizis et al. (2001) reported a companion candidate of spectral type L1 near the K2 dwarf GJ 1048 using the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS). At that time it was not possible to verify companionship astrometrically using the 2MASS data alone due to the small proper motion of GJ 1048. We now show that both objects share the same proper motion by using data from the UK Schmidt Telescope Near-infrared (IVN) Southern Survey as the first epoch and data from 2MASS as the second epoch. Our technique of subtracting the PSF of the primary from the SuperCOSMOS I scans of the Southern Survey enables the astrometry of the companion candidate to be measured directly., Comment: Accepted to A&A 2004/03/14, 3 pages, 4 figures