Ultra-compact (X-ray) binaries

A short year 2005 review of ultra-compact binaries, focused on ultra-compact X-ray binaries, is followed by a discussion of results of our VLT campaign to obtain optical spectra of (candidate) ultra-compact X-ray binaries. We find evidence for carbon/oxygen as well as helium/nitrogen discs and no evidence for (traces) of hydrogen. This suggests that the donors in the observed systems are white dwarfs. However, we also find large differences between the two C/O discs of which we have good spectra, which highlights the need for a better understanding of the optical spectra.