We have chosen the name of GYES, one of the mythological giants with one hundred arms,offspring of Gaia and Uranus, for our instrument study of a multifibre spectrograph forthe prime focus of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Such an instrument could provide anexcellent ground-based complement for the Gaia mission and a northern complement to theHERMES project on the AAT. The CFHT is well known for providing a stable prime focusenvironment, with a large field of view, which has hosted several imaging instruments, buthas never hosted a multifibre spectrograph. Building upon the experience gained at GÉPIwith FLAMES-Giraffe and X-Shooter, we are investigating the feasibility of a highmultiplex spectrograph (about 500 fibres) over a field of view one degree in diameter. Weare investigating an instrument with resolution in the range 15 000 to 30 000, whichshould provide accurate chemical abundances for stars down to 16th magnitude and radialvelocities, accurate to 1 km s-1 for fainter stars. The study is led byGÉPI-Observatoire de Paris with a contribution from Oxford for the study of thepositioner. The financing for the study comes from INSU CSAA and Observatoire de Paris.The conceptual study will be delivered to CFHT for review by October 1st 2010.

This is an ongoing project.

During last few years, new instruments like GIRAFFE (Flores, H., Hammer, F., Puech, M., et al., 2006, A&A 455,107) or SINFONI (Förster Schreiber, N.M., Genzel, R., Lehnert, M.D., et al., 2006, ApJ 645,1062) have began investigations on 3D kinematics of high redshift galaxies. This is just the head of the iceberg as Extremely Large Telescope will allow this kind of study on a larger sample. By now, it is important to be able to recover the actual kinematic parameters, and overall to disentangle evolutionnary effects from distance effects.

We have used the FLAMES multi-integral field unit system of the European Southern Observatory (VLT) centered on the cluster MS0451.6-0305 at z = 0.5386 to obtain the spatially resolved kinematics of the cluster members. The spectral data are supported by HST/ACS images that provide immediate morphological information of the cluster galaxies. The relevant structural parameters such as inclination, size, and orientation derived from optical high angular resolution images are compared with those derived from the kinematics. Our final goals are: 1. to derive the Tully-Fisher relation for cluster galaxies with regular kinematics. 2. to obtain the dynamical masses from resolved kinematics and stellar masses from optical images to be compared with local measurements.

We have discovered four intergalactic HII regions in the Stephan's quintet, at more than 25 kpc projected distance from the center of the nearest group galaxy, with no apparent optical connection to it. They have ${\rm M}_B$ ranging from −11.9 to −12.5 mag, colors B$-$R=0.7 to 1.1 mag, radial velocities from 6565 to 6651 km/s and they are superposed onto the HI tail east of NGC 7319, with a mean radial velocity of 6610 km/s. In addition, they have metalicities of the order of 12+log(O/H)=8.58$\pm$0.25, which suggests that they were formed from pre-enriched material. We derive a mean age of $4.6 \pm 0.6$ Myr and a mean stellar mass of $(2.9 \pm 1.4)\times10^4~M_\odot$ for the four objects. The masses, ages, colors, velocities, metalicities and location of the objects suggest that they are HII regions that were formed far away from the galaxies through compression of the intergalactic HI gas by galaxy collisions.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

We present Hα emission line velocity fields of two Low Surface Brightness galaxies (LSBs) - UGC 628 and UGC 5005 - obtained using Fabry-Perot (FP) interferometry observations at the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope. Our goal is to study the dynamics of LSBs.

We present results from an ongoing survey of the ionized gas kinematics in Virgo cluster spiral galaxies using Fabry-Perot (FP) interferometry. Our goal is to study the environmental effects on galaxy evolution in the Virgo cluster. We report here on the Hα distribution map and velocity field of NGC 4438, an interacting galaxy near the centre of the cluster.

A candidate Tidal Dwarf Galaxy, ce-61, was identified in the merger system IC 1182 in the Hercules supercluster. The multi-wavelength data we obtained so far do not prove, however, that it is kinematically detached from the IC 1182 system and gravitationally bound.

We present results obtained from our 21cm VLA survey of spirals in Coma. The goal of this HI imaging of galaxies is twofold: first, study the interaction between individual galaxies and the cluster environment, looking for a connection with the starburst and post starburst phenomena. Second, to investigate the dynamical state of the cluster, analyzing the gas content of different groups of galaxies.

This report covers the period July 1996 to June 1999. It has been prepared by the President of the Commission with contributions from the members of the Organizing Committee and Dr. E.M. Corsini. As discussed in Kyoto and decided by the Organizing Committee, the report is meant to be in the “short” version.

The ESO Slice Project (ESP) is a galaxy redshift survey we have recently completed as an ESO Key-Project over about 30 square degrees, in a region near the South Galactic Pole (Vettolani et al., submitted to A&A). The survey is nearly complete to the limiting magnitude bJ = 19.4 and consists of more than three thousands galaxies with reliable redshift determination.

A major astrophysical problem is related to the fact that rotation curves (RCs)) of galaxies are flat. The presence of a dark halo is most often invoked to explain that. Some controversies exist concerning the existence of a dark halo for galaxies in very hostile environments like in center of clusters. Using a scanning Fabry-Perot interferometer, we have observed Hα velocity fields of a sample of 38 galaxies located in 7 different clusters of galaxies. From this sample, our conclusion is that spirals located in the central part of clusters do not have decreasing RCs within the optical radius.

We present preliminary results of a galaxy redshift survey we are accomplishing as an ESO Key Project over about 40 square degrees in a region near the South Galactic Pole, to a limiting magnitude bJ = 19.4. Up to now ∼ 50% of the survey has been completed, providing about 2000 galaxy redshifts.

In a comparative study, optical and radio spectra are presented in order to further investigate violent turbulent motions in starburst galaxies. Emission-line, HI and OH profiles of IRAS 10039-3338 exhibit signs of a highly perturbed far-infrared galaxy. Remarkably narrow and distinct OH components are shown in the megamaser spectra. A molecular mass of 1010 MO is deduced from CO observations. The presence of comparable numbers of blue and red-shifted components is apparently not in favor of an outflow interpretation.

A simple study of the galaxian surface density maps of the nearby Universe, obtained from CGCG, MCG and ESO catalogues, has allowed to evidence 3 new large-scale structures. Analysis of the redshifts of the galaxies in the corresponding zones shows that two of them are probably real three-dimensional entities.

Distance determinations of the high-redshift galaxy NGC 7319 in Stephan's Quintet, based on 21-cm line observations, yield a value much smaller than the cosmological distance. At the 98.7 % level, a part of the redshift of this galaxy which could amount to 5000 km s−1 is anomalous.