On June 19 2015 our dear colleague Emil Popow passed away. Over a period of more than 40 years, Emil Popow took part in the life of the AIP and made fundamental contributions to the development of the technical section.

We are filled with sadness by the news of the death of our former colleague Marie-Luise Strohbusch.

In the first week of June 2015 the 592. WE-Hereaus Seminar in Bad Honnef brings together representatives from the extensive ground-based surveys, spacecraft missions CoRoT, Kepler and future Plato-2, as well as galaxy formation and stellar evolution experts to set a roadmap for future endeavors in the field of spectroscopic surveys, asteroseismology and chemodynamical models.

The International Scientific Committee (known internationally by its initials in Spanish) "CCI" held its 73rd meeting at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), Potsdam, Germany in May 2015. The meeting was sponsored and held on behalf of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG.

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), in collaboration with Hamburger Sternwarte and Dr. Remeis-Sternwarte Bamberg, is digitizing an archive of astronomical photographic plates as a means to preserve cultural heritage. These photographic plates contain observations spanning nearly 100 years.

The "Wilhelm-Foerster-Preis 2015" is awarded to Matthias Steinmetz, scientific chairman of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and director of the research area Extragalactic Astrophysics. It is annualy granted by the Urania Potsdam.

A systematic analysis of all observations performed so far by the X-ray satellite XMM-Newton resulted in the worlds most comprehensive catalogue of X-ray detected celestial objects. It was compiled and published by a science consortium, the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre, the AIP being one of its members.

The Potsdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectroscopic Instrument (PEPSI) has received its first celestial light through the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). Astronomers from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam showed the instruments incredible capabilities at different wavelengths and resolving powers.

An international team of astrophysicists, led by Cristina Chiappini from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, has discovered a group of red giant stars for which the ‘chemical clock’ does not work: according to their chemical signature, these stars should be old. Instead, they appear to be young when their ages are inferred using asteroseismology.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research will fund the Centre for Innovation Competence innoFSPEC for another five years. Federal Minister Johanna Wanka praises the scientific expertise.

The European radio interferometer LOFAR succeeded in taking unique pictures of the solar eclipse on March 20th as it is not possible by eye.

Funded by Wilhelm und Else Heraeus-Stiftung.

30 students participate in the Photonics Academy and get the opportunity to visit 20 company and research institute labs from 8th to 13th March 2015.

A new innovative instrument called MUSE (Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer) has been successfully installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in northern Chile.

Matthias Steinmetz participated in a SOFIA research flight.

MUSE goes beyond Hubble

An international team of astronomers around Eric Mamajek from the University of Rochester (USA) found out that our solar system had a stellar visitor very rently, just 70,000 years ago.

In the highly interdisciplinary research project "Loss of the Night", scientists of very different institutions of the Leibniz Association investigate the increasing illumination of the night, its ecological, cultural and socioeconomic effects, and the effects on human health. Their aim is to develop improved lighting concepts and sustainable technologies.

A recently published study in the scientific journal Nature presents a method by which the age of stars can be determined very precisely: "Gyrochronology", an analytical procedure for determining the ages of stars with knowledge of their masses and rotation periods.