We consider free atoms and ions in $\R^3$ interacting with the quantized electromagnetic field. Because of the translation invariance we consider the reduced hamiltonian associated with the total momentum. After introducing an ultraviolet cutoff we prove that the reduced hamiltonian for atoms has a ground state if the coupling constant and the total momentum are sufficiently small. In the case of ions an extra infrared regularization is needed. We also consider the case of the hydrogen atom in a constant magnetic field. Finally we determine the absolutely continuous spectrum of the reduced hamiltonian.