In this presentation I will provide an overview of the principle developments in the field of long and short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and their host galaxies over the past two decades. I will show how near-infrared observations of the afterglows of short and long GRBs have been pivotal in developing our understanding on the underlying progenitor, largely aided by the rapid and accurate afterglow positions available with the GRB Swift mission. I will also discuss the use of long GRBs as probes of the high redshift Universe, and in particular how their broadband and bright afterglows provide a powerful probe of the interstellar conditions within their high-z, star forming host galaxies. I will also discuss the selection effects present in GRB and host galaxy samples, and how these have affected our view on the host galaxy properties of long GRBs.

The stellar initial mass function (the IMF) plays a ubiquitous role in astrophysics, from controlling the metal production by stellar populations, to establish the mass-to-light ratio of galaxies and the rate of their luminosity evolution, to set the strength of gravity sensitive spectral features and much more. Sometimes one appeals to a top-heavy IMF to ease some perceived discrepancy, or to a bottom-heavy one to ease another. In this lecture I will concentrate on a few specific examples,  illustrating the effect of the IMF slope in different mass ranges, near the solar mass as well as well above and below it,  and including issues such as the metal content of clusters of galaxies, the fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies and their integrated spectrum. In a final caveat, it will be emphasized that measuring the IMF from integrated light requires the use tools which, if not perfect, could imprint their defects into the result.

I will give a brief overview of our current understanding of AGN, in particular focusing on the different “pieces of the puzzle”: the central BH, the accretion flow, the torus, outflows, and jets. I will discuss their physical properties and the techniques/bands used to study them.  I will mention also the current open questions and possible way forward.

The exoplanet studies were born on the border of two fields - those of binary star and the Solar system studies. I will review the history of the exoplanet research, the latest results, and will summarize the most important questions that have remained unanswered.

We will discuss emission line processes such as forbidden lines (collisional processesetc), recombinations and fluorescent lines. Practical examples of modeling NLTE atoms and looking at spectra to derive properties will be demonstrated.

Information field theory (IFT) describes probabilistic image reconstruction from incomplete and noisy data. Based on field theoretical concepts IFT provides optimal methods to generate images exploiting all available information. Applications in astrophysics are galactic tomography, gamma- and radio- astronomical imaging, and the analysis of cosmic microwave background data. A novel IFT-based gamma ray sky image derived from data of the Fermi-satellite provides insights into the high energy properties of the Milky Way.

Planetary systems form in circumstellar disks around young stars in the first few Myr of stellar evolution. The physical and chemical condtions of disks determine the properties and architecture of planetary systems at birth. Understanding these properties and how they evolve with time during the planet formation process is thus critical to understand thediversity of planetary systems.

In Part I, I discussed the basic theory of disk formation and evolution and the constraints from (mostly) millimetre observations of the dust emission. In Part II, I will discuss the observational properties of the gas in the outer disk, the gas-dust interaction and the growth of dust into pebbles and the first steps of planet formation.

Planetary systems form in circumstellar disks around young stars in the first few Myr of stellar evolution. The physical and chemical condtions of disks determine the properties and architecture of planetary systems at birth. Understanding these properties and how they evolve with time during the planet formation process is thus critical to understand the diversity of planetary systems. I will discuss the basic physical processes in disks and how to probe them observationally, focusing on some of the key basic techniques and physical processes.

Galaxy scaling relations have become quite an industry over the past 1-2 decades. For those who are "insiders" of this industry such scaling relations have become important tools, for those who are not - galaxy scaling relations can have a flavour of "mystery" or "magic".  I am myself a relative newcomer to this field, and in this introduction my aim is first to demystify the concept.  Once everybody feels comfortably convinced that no particular magic skills are required, the second aim is to show in a few examples how those relations can guide us towards an understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. If all goes well then I hope to be able to finish with a few examples of my favourite relations, and in particular show how they have evolved since the formation of the first galaxies in the early universe.

Many scientists take for granted that the model describing the Universe is the so-called Cosmological ‘concordance model’, whose major ‘ingredients’ are DARK (!) energy, DARK (!) matter and a small percentage of baryons. But is this popular model a result of the modern fundamentalism or of the globalisation? Are we fooling ourselves with modern ‘epicycles'?
I would like to show what observations are telling us and how ‘non-controversial’ physics is not able to explain the major features ‘seen’ in the Cosmic Microwave Background and in the Large Scale Structure of the Universe. Secondly I would like to introduce another discussion topic: physical laws are time-reversible, then, is time needed to describe a change?
Be aware: you will get neither a course in Cosmology nor in Quantum Gravity, only (I hope) some seeds for thoughts.

Discovered in the 1960s, astrophysical masers (microwave lasers) occur in a range of environments,
such as comets, supernova remnants, star formation and the central parsecs of AGN. Their uses
include determination of physical conditions, they can be used to measure magnetic fields, obtain high accuracy masses and to make distance determinations. Masers are now being used to determine the Hubble constant, via the Water Megamaser Cosmology Project, and to study the spiral structure and kinematics of the Milky Way via the Bar and Spiral Structure Legacy (BeSSeL) Survey. In this lecture, I will cover different aspects of the maser phenomenon and their uses.

If there is one thing in common throughout virtually all of modern astrophysics, that must be the importance of measuring the distance to celestial bodies. In fact, hardly any physics can be done without knowing the distance to the objects being studied. Cepheid stars are arguably the best stellar distance indicators. They were key in establishing the nature of the Universe at the beginning of last century and will play a major role into the foreseeable future, as we gain more insight in the physics that regulates them and in the systematics that affect their properties.

I will review the physical properties of Cepheid and their numerous applications, from probes of galactic structure and evolution to their role in investigating the nature of Cosmic Acceleration.

I will give a brief review of galaxy clusters and the CMB, and then introduce the thermal and kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effects. I will compare this to X-ray emission from the intra-cluster medium and discuss some of the types of studies SZ observations have enabled alone and in combination with X-ray observations.

The chemical history of a galaxy is dominated by the nucleosynthesis occurring in many generations of stars. By deriving the abundance of different chemical elements in different types of stars, I will show with practical examples how one can decipher and constrain their chemical evolution.

I will present an introduction to the properties of interstellar dust in the Milky Way Galaxy, following the life cycle of dust from formation in the atmosphere and circumstellar shells surrounding evolved stars, to its alteration in the interstellar medium, to its metamorphosis into the seedlings of planets in the environment of newly formed stars. 

Introduction from history: sensitivity vs time. Scaling and conservation laws for instruments. Detectors in a nut shell. Constraints by the atmosphere: the good, the bad and the ugly ... A few prototypical instruments, admittedly with a bit of infrared bias ... Interferometry. New trends and technology. The grass is or is not greener elsewhere: instrumentation beyond ESO. How to calculate signal to noise ratios and certainly an E-ELT outlook.

The presentation will last for 90 minutes with a short break.

I will begin by outlining how radio interferometry works, starting from the idea of coherence and explaining the differences from  optical interferometry.   The treatment will be mostly qualitative, avoiding mathematical complexity.  I will then present the basic Fourier relation of interferometry and ask the audience to play "guess the Fourier transform" for well-known objects and people. With luck, this will help to develop an intuitive feel for the idea. I will try to reinforce some important concepts like resolution, spatial scales and sampling and to demystify the "u-v plane".

The second part of the lecture will be on practical applications of radio and (sub-)mm interferometry: how do you pick an array and instrumental configuration to do your science?  I will give a quick tour of current and near-future arrays from LOFAR to ALMA, show how to pick the appropriate one and end with a quick overview of what to expect from data-reduction packages, pipelines and archives.