Giant planets have had a long history of radically overturning our expectations of how they form and where they are likely to be found around other stars. In 1995, the first exoplanet detected around a Sun-like star was not found further out from the star, as expected from the locations of Jupiter and Saturn and then current formation theories, but rather on a 4-day orbit with a surface temperature just above the melting point of silver and a radius nearly twice that of Jupiter. Since then we have detected thousands of exoplanets, which have shown remarkable diversity, and imaged the discs around young stars where baby planets are being born. Although there are many common characteristics of these exoplanets and discs, some stand out as outliers. There are systems that are thought ‘too old’ to form planets, or planetary-mass companions that are ‘too big’ in relation to their host stars or should not have had the time to grow that massive to begin with. These are some of the (many) outstanding questions on the frontier of research into planet formation, and in just the past few years we have finally been able to directly observe a few planets that are in the process of forming. In an almost parallel development to the rapid expansion of research into exoplanets, we have also come to realise that brown dwarfs can be excellent analogues to giant planets and contribute significantly to our understanding of both the atmospheres and the formation process of giant planets.

This thesis explores several aspects of the dynamics of substellar atmospheres and the accretion process at planetary masses. It discusses the observing methods, which provide the foundations of the photometric and spectroscopic observations that produced the data for the included papers. This is followed by a chapter on star and planet formation and one discussing the variability of substellar atmospheres. The final chapter delves more directly into the observational features of accretion and the tracers and diagnostics which enable us to start qualitatively characterise the accretion process at planetary masses.

The first paper presents a NOT/NOTCam photometric survey of ten brown dwarfs, where the goal was to identify new high-amplitude variables that could be suitable for deeper studies. A large fraction was found to be variable, significantly adding to the number of known variable brown dwarfs.

In the second paper, integral field spectroscopy obtained with VLT/MUSE of the planetary-mass companion Delorme 1 (AB)b and its host binary star is presented. Very strong hydrogen line emission was detected from the companion, indicative of active accretion in this 40-myr-old system. 

In the third paper, Delorme 1 (AB)b was further studied by VLT/UVES and R = 50000 spectroscopy. As a result, near-UV hydrogen emission lines were resolved in a planetary-mass companion for the first time. The analysis of these lines strengthened the case for active accretion in the companion.