A precedent to the recently-discovered pulsed radio sources or ‘pulsars’ exists in our own solar system. Jupiter could be thought of as a very slow ‘pulsar’ having a period of about 10 h or 35 000 s. Like pulsars, this emission period is known to a high order of accuracy (about 1 in 106). One difference is that Jupiter emission is received over an appreciable part of this period (1/4 to 1/2 or more) compared with about 1/30 of a typical pulsar period (about 40 ms in 1.3 s). Both pulsar and Jupiter bursts have a microstructure of the order of milliseconds, suggesting similar sizes of instantaneous emission regions. In both, the intensity observed varies from period to period. Emissions from both have relatively strong circular-polarization components at times.

This paper presents a new Lagrangian approach to the numeric solution of the equation of gas dynamics in two dimensions. This, the signal method, is implemented here as a free Lagrange method in the code FLAME. The signal method is conservative, stable, unsplit, positive definite, accurately tracks strong shock fronts with ease, and adapts to and follows complex gas flows for long times. No artificial viscosities are introduced. No special knowledge of the solution is required in advance and only local information is used.

I will summarize briefly some results obtained from further studies of the Molonglo catalogues MC2 and MC3, centred approximately at declinations +11° and +16° respectively (Sutton et al. 1974).

The Molonglo cross-type radiotelescope has been in operation since 1967 and it is expected that its principal task, the fundamental sky survey, will be completed within the next few years. This by no means represents the end of the useful life of the instrument but we have been investigating modifications to extend further its usefulness. The most desirable modification appears to be a substantial increase in operating frequency to improve the resolution and positional accuracy.

Since 1965 we have been unravelling the curious properties of the intense 18 cm emission lines observed from OH molecules. We are still without a quantitative theory of the emission that might tie the threads together and provide guidelines for the observational work. The most plausible hypothesis is that we are dealing with naturally occurring interstellar gas masers. I want to present some of the latest evidence we have in favour of the maser action, and to indicate where it is inadequate. I will concentrate on work done in 1967, as the earlier work has been discussed in detail elsewhere.

The polarization characteristics of celestial radio signals are a major part of the observable nature of the radiation. Stokes polarimeters, instruments for measuring the complete polarization properties of radiation, are usually narrowband devices in order to minimise depolarization effects originating in the source or in the medium through which the radiation propagates. To measure the broadband polarization behaviour of a source, a Stokes polarimeter-spectrometer is required. Such an instrument allows the frequency dependence of each Stokes parameter to be deduced, making it possible to apply corrections to each parameter to account for known forms of polarization distortion (e.g. Faraday rotation). It is also possible to remove delay distortion from impulsive sources such as pulsars by processing the spectrometer data according to the usual de-dispersion algorithms. In some studies observation of distortion phenomena may be the major aim and a polarimeter spectrometer greatly facilitates measurements of these effects.

In July 1967 and June 1968 observations of the central intensity variation in several chromospheric lines were obtained by P. R. Wilson and myself at Sacramento Peak Observatory, New Mexico using the 16-inch coronagraph coupled with the high-dispersion Littrow Spectrograph. Observations in the MgB lines (λ5184, 5173, 5167 Å) were obtained the first summer whilst the NaD lines (λ5889, 5896 Å) were studied in the second. Table I shows the mean heights in the solar atmosphere at which it is thought these lines are formed.

We have successfully demonstrated optical aperture synthesis at the 4-m Anglo-Australian Telescope. By using a multi-hole mask over the (re-imaged) primary mirror and recording the resulting fringe patterns with high time resolution, diffraction-limited images of sufficiently bright objects can be reconstructed. The data processing uses closure phases to overcome the effects of atmospheric turbulence. We show an image of the double star η Oph, with component separation 0″.45.

Pulsars are unique astronomical objects in that their emission is in the form of a periodic pulse train. For most pulsars the pulse duty cycle is small, only a few per cent of the period. The shapes and intensities of individual pulses are in general quite variable. This is illustrated in Figure 1 which shows a series of individual pulses from PSR 1133 + 16. Despite this variation in shape of individual pulses, it is found that the mean or integrated pulse profile obtained by adding many pulses synchronously with the period is in most cases stable in shape.

Our previous observations of the distribution of the H110α recombination line emission (rest frequency 4.87 GHz) towards Sgr A, obtained with the Parkes 64-m telescope and a 4′ .5 arc beam (Gardner and Whiteoak 1977 — to be referred to as Paper I), suggested that the emission was concentrated around the outer edge of the ‘arc’ of continuum radiation which extends 15′ arc to the north-east of the galactic nucleus.

Schmidt (1968) and Rowan-Robinson (1968) developed a simple and concise test for the uniformity of the distribution of quasars (QSOs) based on QSO luminosity and occupied volume.

Although stars can be approximated very satisfactorily by spherical models, it is clear from observations of star forming regions that the break-up of molecular gas to form proto-stars is a highly complex process that cannot be approximated simply. As a consequence, the theoretical picture of fragmentation, which is based on assuming that fragmentation occurs in uniform, static, isothermal clouds, is too crude to provide a guide to the star formation process. The alternative is to simulate the fragmentation process numerically with the ultimate aim of evolving the gas to proto-stars. The difficulties involved with this procedure are discussed in this paper. We also discuss our proposed solution to this problem, together with a very preliminary calculation.

The accuracy of the absolute value of solar flux depends on the temperature calibration techniques and the knowledge of the gain of the aerial used for the measurements. Recent advances in low-noise receivers, microwave components, and amplifier stability have reduced considerably the errors due to temperature calibration techniques. At present the knowledge of the gain of the aerial used for calibrations (usually a pyramidal horn) presents the largest source of doubt of an absolute calibration. Investigations of this problem suggest that a ‘standard gain horn’ should be employed at all observatories in absolute solar calibrations.

A brief description of astronomy in New Zealand both amateur and professional, past and present is given, with particular emphasis on the work carried out by the two professional establishments; the Carter Observatory, Wellington and the Mt John University Observatory of the University of Canterbury.

The reasons for re-surveying the neutral hydrogen in the Small Magellanic Cloud and the results from that survey are briefly discussed in our previous paper (McGee and Newton 1982 — Paper I). We now present the experimental details, the 489 observed line profiles and details of the Gaussian analysis of each one. The profiles here are from the ‘main body’ of the SMC. Those of the ‘bridge region’ between the two Clouds of Magellan will form the basis of a later paper.

Carbon stars have always been amongst the most intriguing of stars which show grossly non-solar abundances. All such stars raise the questions:

(a) at what stage of stellar evolution does this peculiar abundance phase occur?

(b) do all stars pass through this stage?

(c) is the phase significant in the overall picture of galactic nucleosynthesis?

The Culgoora circular array (CCA) is a 3-km-diameter ring of 96 reflectors operating at 80, 160 and 327 MHz. It has an effective collecting area of ~ 6000 m2 and achieves angular resolutions (full half-power beamwidths) of 3’.70, 1 ‘.85 and 0’.92 at the three operating frequencies. During the interval 1978-1981 we have used the CCA to make 80 and 160 MHz measurements of a comprehensive selection of radio sources which were detected during various complete surveys of clusters of galaxies (see Table 1). We have combined our low-frequency intensity measurements with other available higher-frequency flux data to compute accurate radio spectra. The 160 MHz contour maps for many of the cluster fields were used to find positions and angular sizes for the associated radio sources.