The following are brief summaries of recent observational investigations of SN 1987A by ESO staff and their collaborators, which were reported at the Conference.

If computer speed and storage keeps increasing at the present rate a three dimensional numerical code modelling the exact equations governing general relativistic collapse will soon be possible; however, at present it is necessary to use simplifying approximations. Provided the general relativistic effects are limited to a ‘small’ perturbation, the post-Newtonian equations of Chandrasekhar (1965) should be adequate. These equations take the form of the Newtonian equations for a self gravitating fluid with extra terms to incorporate the 1/c 2 contributions, where c is the speed of light. The numerical solution of these equations can be achieved using any method appropriate for three dimensional Newtonian hydrodynamics.

The purpose of this paper is to advance an alternative hypothesis for the underlying distinction between solar radio bursts of spectral type V and ‘inverted U’ bursts, and to explore its implications.

We present a list of bright (< 17 mag) southern QSOs and bright (< 11 mag) stars that may be suitable for the Hubble Space Telescope link between the Hipparcos astrometric reference frame and the VLBI extragalactic frame. The QSOs have been selected from various lists of radio objects and identifications. The stars have been selected from the Strasbourg (CDS) data base and from the Preliminary Second Cape Photographic Catalogue, and supplemented with stars measured from the SERC IIIa-J Schmidt survey. The list of QSOs and stars have been included in the Hipparcos and HST schedule of observations.

A search for the 126a hydrogen recombination line, with a rest frequency of 3248.713 MHz, has been made in the 19 sources listed in Table I using the Parkes telescope. The beamwidth was 6′ are and the frequency resolution 37 kHz. In the Table RCW refers to the Rodgers, Campbell and Whiteoak Atlas, W to the Westerhout catalogue, and the co-ordinate numbers to the Parkes Catalogue of Sources. In each case the ratio of the peak of the line to the continuum TL/TC , the half-intensity width Δv and the mean radial velocity to the local standard of rest, were determined. The related velocities observed in OH emission and absorption are also shown.

The Thumbprint Nebula (TPN) in Chamaeleon (first described by Fitzgerald (1974), and shown in Figure 1) is a good example of the class of dense, dark nebulae that exhibit dark cores and bright rims, and have been referred to (Lynds 1967) as ‘bright dark nebulae’. Early observations of these nebulae established that the dust grains within them were strongly forward-scattering (Struve and Elvey 1936, Struve 1937). However, the treatment of the radiative transfer problem was too inadequate to permit more than tentative conclusions regarding the nebulae. In more recent years, with the advent of modern computers, the transfer of radiation through a dust cloud has been treated more rigorously, using Monte Carlo techniques (Mattila 1970, Witt and Stephens 1974). Witt and Stephens (1974) have demonstrated that for a dense nebula the surface brightness profile is sensitive to the dust grain density distribution within the cloud and to the scattering properties of the grains. The scattering model approach can be valuable in the investigation of very opaque dark nebulae that cannot be studied by conventional star counting techniques. This has been demonstrated in the case of the TPN by Fitzgerald et al (1976), who used the Witt and Stephens model.

It is more than 120 years since the discovery of spiral galaxies, and naturally there has been much speculation on their origin. The vital clue is the composition of the arms, and it is now known that the arms are patterns of newly formed, and hence very luminous, stars. Thus the problem of spiral arms is only part of the broader problem of the origin of stellar systems in general. The various galactic forms of the Hubble morphological classification are differentiated by their different stellar systems, and so the problem of spiral arms is part of the basic problem of the origin of the Hubble types. For this reason the potential significance of any theory of spiral arms is vastly extended.

Both Holmberg (1961) and de Vaucouleurs (1963, 1973) found a significant difference between the mean velocities of the different morphological types in the Virgo cluster of galaxies. To check on any dependence of this result upon spatial distribution, Lewis (1975) plotted the position of every object in the compilation of de Vaucouleurs (1961) as a function of its type. Figure 1 is the resulting plot for the elliptical galaxies, which appear to lie within two well-defined and well-separated groups. The principal parameters of these groups are listed in Table I. Arp (1967) briefly noted the linear form of the northern group centred on NGC 4486. This paper examines the evidence for the physical existence of these groups.

The Culgoora radioheliograph was designed in the early 1960s and commissioned in 1967. Since then there have been dramatic increases in the speed and versatility of digital integrated-circuit devices, and also a marked fall in their cost. It is now possible to replace the original signal processing electronics with equipment, based on modern digital technology, which will significantly enhance the performance of this radio telescope for solar and cosmic radio observations at metre wavelengths.

In γ-ray astronomy one often wishes to search for a periodic signal from a suspected point source. Either one knows the period in advance, for example in the case of a radio pulsar, or at least a range of possible periods, or one has no information and is searching “blind”, as in the case of SN1987a, unidentified sources in the COS-B catalogue, or binary X-ray sources without known pulse periods. In both cases one should adopt a strategy which give the best chance of obtaining a statistically significant result. The power of tests using the family of statistics based on the Rayleigh statistic is discussed for two extreme forms of possible light curves: a uniform distribution plus a delta function, and a cartoid distribution. Strategies for using these statistics are discussed. Methods of obtaining confidence bands, and in the case of an unsuccessful search, upper-limits to any pulsed component are described, and graphs given which enable these to be calculated readily given the value of the statistic obtained.

The numerical solution of the basic equations for non-linear steady convection in the weak-coupling approximation is exceedingly difficult. In astronomical applications the Rayleigh number R will be of the order of1012, and we wish to report here some results obtained in the case of high Rayleigh numbers with the use of an asymptotic method.

The NASA Voyager spacecraft missions to the outer planets have provided a wealth of observational data with regard to the physical and chemical properties of the attendant satellite systems. Although the gaseous nebula discs from which these satellites are suspected to have formed are no longer present, these data provide at least some basis from which the characteristics of individual nebula can be deduced.

In a recent paper Aizu and Tabara list 36 radio sources classified as supernova remnants (SNR). Some of these identifications are based on low-resolution radio data and are consequently unreliable. Using the Parkes 210-foot radio telescope at 635, 1410 and 2650 MHz (beamwidth 31′, 15′ and 8′.4 respectively), E. R. Hill and the author observed the seven sources listed in Table I. Of these seven, there is close agreement with Aizu and Tabara’s data only in the last one (3C396.1), and we agree with the SNR classification, with certain reservations, for only three of these sources.

In this paper we review the evidence on the structure of the open magnetic field lines that emerge from solar active regions into interplanetary space. The evidence comes mainly from the measured sizes, positions and polarization of Type III and Type V bursts, and from electron streams observed from space. We find that the observations are best interpreted in terms of a strongly-diverging field topology, with the open field lines filling a cone of angle ~60°.

This paper is a preliminary report on the flux density monitoring of calibration sources used at the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope. We show two examples of large amplitude variability at 843 MHz which we attribute to refractive scintillation in the Galactic interstellar medium.

SN 1987A is sufficiently close to allow a unique examination of the morphology of a supernova, using speckle interferometry. Several groups [Center for Astrophysics (CfA); Imperial College (IC); Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories/Anglo-Australian Observatory (M/A)] have reported optical speckle observations. At Hα, both CfA and M/A have determined the angular extent of the emission, and reasonable agreement is obtained. The speckle-derived values are consistent with those obtained from line profiles. IC has also succeeded in resolving the supernova at Hα. At wavelengths other than Hα, at early epochs, angular diameters obtained by CfA are larger than those derived from photometric and spectroscopic measurements, possibly due to scattering effects. At later epochs, the diameters exhibit little variation between the wavelengths examined. CfA reports significant asymmetry in the late epoch data.

Several attempts have been made to re-observe (at optical wavelengths) the companion object, but none have succeeded. The nature of this phenomenon is still controversial, but the evidence indicates that the companion was real, with emission from dust apparently being the least problematic explanation. Support for this may lie in IR speckle observations (Haute Provence/Lyon) which, on about day 115, indicated the presence of one or more resolved components at an angular displacement comparable to that of the optical companion.

The classical theorems on the intensity of radiation (e.g. Milne) depend on the geometry of rectilinear ray trajectories in uniform media. In particular, the theorem concerning the specific intensity I in a medium specified by an isotropic refractive index μ—that, where there are no gains due to emission or losses due to absorption or scattering, the quantity I/μ2 = constant—is proved by assuming that the medium consists of a series of regions of constant refractive index at whose plane interfaces the coefficients of reflection are zero. For these the geometry of the trajectories (Figure 1) is such that, by Snell’s law,