NICS-Amici, the very low resolution spectroscopic mode of the TNG IR instrument , has once more proved its unique capabilities by producing the by far most complete sample of IR spectra of high redshift quasars, including those at z>6 recently discovered by the SLOAN project. Fig. 1 Red line: NICS-Amici spectrum of the farthest QSO known at z=6.4The blue-dashed line shows the fit to the continuum emission. These data, whose quality match and often exceeds those of similar spectra taken...

During the period February-March 2003, the Nasmyth-A focal station underwent a series of major maintanence works which included re-aligning of the elevation and derotator encoder heads, upgrade of the derotator optics/mechanics and maintenance of the adaptive optics module. These complex operations had virtually no impact on the night-time use of the TNG which smoothly continued with the Nasmyth-B instruments (DOLORES & SARG). Taking advantage of the relatively long period of inactivity...