The design of the Australia Telescope is discussed, particularly in reference to the compact array, the frequency ranges of operation, the field of view, dynamic range, polarization, bandwidth, correlators, time resolution and flexibility. Site preparation at Culgoora, antenna design, reflector panel construction, feed horns, receivers an cryogenics, and computing are receiving full attention.

A class 2 flare began on 1968 June 9 in the active region near 17°N 40°E, at about 00h15m U.T., maximum 00h37m, terminating about 02h30m. The event was recorded at Culgoora with the 5-inch flare-patrol and 12-inch chromo-spheric telescopes at solar diameters and frame intervals of 16 mm/10 s and 17 cm/3 s respectively. Both telescopes used Halle filters, pass bands about 0.5Å centred on Hα, and Duplopan 35 mm film. The seeing was mediocre, with occasional fairly good frames.

If there were no solar magnetic fields, then the most active feature observable on the Sun would be the hydrodynamic convection. There would be no sunspots, flares, prominences, plage, spicules, and no copious emissions of X-rays, energetic particles or radio bursts. These effects are all due to the presence of a changing pattern of magnetic fields which repeats every 22 years. While observations of electromagnetic phenomena are limited to the solar surface and atmosphere, a full understanding of these effects must include a satisfactory theory of the solar cycle and of the fields which evolve beneath the surface as a result of plasma velocity fields.

A large proportion of the easily accessible radio astronomy spectrum lies between 50 MHz and a lower limit of about 1 MHz set by interstellar absorption. The features of the spectrum in this frequency range, from sources such as the galaxy, extragalactic sources, pulsars, the Sun and Jupiter, remain only partially explored mainly owing to the large sizes of telescopes necessary to obtain adequate angular resolution and sensitivity. In addition, below 20 MHz, interference from man-made radiation and from the ionosphere severely hinders observations. At the lowest frequencies, the effects of the ionosphere can be overcome by using earth satellite telescopes at the expense of greatly increased difficulty in attaining sufficient telescope aperture.

Pulsar rotation measures have been used to investigate the structure of the local Galactic magnetic field. The Galactic field is found to be concentrated in the spiral arms and hence to be a spiral field. From the pulsars within 2kpc of the Sun, the field in the local spiral feature was modelled with Gaussian profiles in altitude and azimuth. In this model the field has a peak strength of 4.3 ± 0.2 μGauss directed towards Galactic longitude l = 73°±6°.

Since the work of Wu and Lee (1979) there has been renewed interest in the classical theory of electron cyclotron masers (Lee and Wu 1980, Lee et al. 1980, Wu et al. 1981, 1982, Hewitt et al. 1981, 1982, Melrose et al. 1982, Omidi and Gurnett 1982, Melrose and Dulk 1982). A useful idea in these recent developments of the classical theory concerns a geometric interpretation of the classical gyroresonance condition

where Ωe , is the nonrelativistic gyrofrequency, s = 0, ± 1, ± 2,… is the harmonic number, is the Lorentz factor and ║ and ┴ denote components parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field. In v ┴ − v ║ space (1) represents an ellipse with centre v ║ = v c , v ┴ = 0, eccentricity e 0 and semi-major axis V parallel to the v ┴ axis, with

Since its discovery by Haro (1952) the star H1-36 has been catalogued as a planetary nebula despite its extremely high-excitation emission-line spectrum (e.g. [Fe VII], [Ne V]) and its imposing, variable infrared excess. Because its optical spectrum resembled those of many symbiotic stars, I have persistently classified H1-36 as such. A meaningful definition of a symbiotic star would necessarily include both the high-excitation emission-line spectrum and the presence of a cool (usually M-type or Mira) giant.

Several critical issues recently raised by observations of SN 1987A are addressed. These include: 1) the evolution of the pre-supernova star, why it was blue, what its composition and core structure were; 2) the detailed isotopic composition of the ejecta; 3) why and to what extent the supernova composition was mixed in velocity space; 4) the interpretation of recently observed infrared lines, especially their profiles and the existence of red-shifted ‘wings’; and 5) what has become of the neutron star.

The cosmic ray flux in the energy range 100 MeV/nucleon ≤ E ≤ 1 GeV/nucleon is remarkable for its high degree of isotropy. Observed deviations from isotropy seldom exceed a few per cent and are commonly much smaller. The mechanism responsible for this isotropy is presumed to be multiple, large-angle scattering of the charged cosmic ray particles by irregularities of the interplanetary magnetic field. While generally precluding any hope of discovering a source-related anisotropy of the flux in this energy range, it is just this strong interaction of the cosmic rays with the interplanetary medium that allows the study of the small observed anisotropies, both persistent and transient, to yield considerable information about the structure of the interplanetary medium (the solar wind and its entrapped magnetic field).

A radio-astronomical observation in its most complete form is a determination of intensity and polarization as functions of frequencyf, time t, and position in the sky. An actual observation is usually much less complete.

A review is presented of the evidence for anisotropies of galactic origin in the charged cosmic ray particle intensity at median primary energies of detection in the range 1011 – 1014eV. It concerns the period from 1958, when the first substantial long-term observations at energies of solar and sidereal modulation near 1011eV commenced underground, until 1984, by which time results were available from a number of years of accurate observations with detectors of small air showers at energies near 1014eV, too high for complicating effects of solar origin to be present. There is evidence for the existence of both unidirectional and bidirectional galactic anisotropies over the whole energy range. Tentative descriptive models are discussed in relation to advances both in solar and sidereal analytical techniques and in the ability of experimenters to account for and exploit the modulating influence of the heliomagnetosphere at the lower energies of detection.

The Lyman mission will undertake the first sensitive high resolution spectroscopic observations in the largely unexplored 912-1216Å region. This astrophysically critical wavelength interval is exceedingly rich in diagnostic spectral lines such as the Lyman series of atomic hydrogen and deuterium, the Lyman and Werner bands of molecular hydrogen and deuterium, and the resonance lines of numerous important species including CIII, NI-III and OVI. Lyman will have a major impact in all areas of modern astrophysics, with the most fundamental contribution being the determination of light element abundances in the local interstellar medium and in the intergalactic medium at low redshift. The mapping of hot gas (T ∼ 3 × 105K) and molecular hydrogen and HD in the disk and halo of our galaxy represent additional major objectives for which Lyman is uniquely qualified.

The Lyman payload will comprise a grazing incidence telescope and three spectroscopic instruments: the prime spectrograph operating between 912-1250Å with a resolution of λ/ Δλ ∼ 30,000, a far ultraviolet spectrograph (1200-2000Å;λ/ Δλ ∼ 10,000), and an extreme ultraviolet spectrograph (100-900Å; λ /Δλ ∼ 300). Observations will be conducted from a highly efficient 48 hour elliptical orbit which will allow long un-interrupted exposures and real time operations. It is anticipated that Lyman will be launched by Ariane in 1996, and will have an operational lifetime of at least 5 years. Data reception and spacecraft control will be undertaken from ground stations in Spain and in Australia.

Lyman is currently being studied at Phase-A level by Australia in close coordination with the European Space Agency. The scientific involvement is the responsibility of the Lyman Science Working Group, composed of members representing the various astronomical institutions in Australia. Funding to support the technical and scientific aspects of the mission is provided via the Australian Space Board and the Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce in recognition of the major opportunity that Lyman presents to the Australian aerospace industry.

The single G8V active chromosphere star HD36705 (AB Dor) was observed at 8.4 GHz with the Parkes 64 m telescope during three observing sessions involving a total of 21 days in the interval 1985 December to 1986 February. Subsequent photometric observations were made of the star with the 0.25 m and 0.45 m telescopes of the Monash Observatory in 1986 March-April. Two strong radio flares, each lasting three days, were detected; they yielded peak radio powers of P 8.4≈4×109 W Hz-1, comparable with the microwave power emitted by the RS CVn binaries. Significant circular polarization of 13% left-hand was measured on only one of the six active days. The 8.4 GHz flux density showed smooth variation over an interval of several hours, consistent with the flare source being partly occulted by the stellar disk as the star rotated. When all the radio data was phase-binned using the known rotation period of 0.514 day we found two radio maxima corresponding to radio sources at stellar longitudes ~180° apart. The subsequent photometric data showed intensity variations that were consistent with the starspots at the same approximate longitudes. We thus interpret our radio curve as showing the presence of comparatively small (<0.5 D*) radio sources in the corona above the star spots. The upper limit to source diameter gives a peak brightness temperature ≥2×l010 K, which can be achieved by gyro-synchrotron emission only if the source is optically thick and the electrons, with average energy ~ 2 MeV, have a hard energy spectrum. The observed radiation can be due only to very high harmonics of the gyro-frequency, leading to an estimate for the magnetic field strength of ~30G.

The four-fold advantage over a conventional 4 m reflector which naive information theory confers on the 1.2 m UK Schmidt telescope (Dawe and Watson 1982, Watson 1983) is only approachable in practice under certain rather specific conditions. These relate principally to the surface distribution on the sky of the object classes of interest, and the type of detection employed. Clearly, for general survey work with sky-limited photographic detection, the information advantage is high, but it can be demonstrated (Dawe and Watson 1983) that the relatively new technique of multi-object fibre-optics spectroscopy (eg Hill et al. 1980, 1982, Gray 1983, Lund and Enard 1983) with linear detectors offers very high potential in certain regimes of operation. In particular, the UK Schmidt telescope (UKST) equipped with 400 fibre channels has four times the effective light grasp (= number of fibres utilized × aperture) of a 4 m reflector (with a 1 deg field and equipped with any number of fibres) for target objects with surface densities between approximately 1 and 10 per square degree (Dawe and Watson 1983). Objects ranging from galactic variable stars to quasars lie within these limits, but of especial interest are galaxies, whose apparent luminosity function in this range of surface densities runs from magnitudes 15 to 17 (MacGillivray, private communication). Large-scale, medium accuracy (60 km s−1) redshift surveys of galaxies within this magnitude range promise to be extremely fruitful (Davis 1982) and are easily within the reach of the UKST fibre-coupled to a CCD spectrograph (Watson and Dawe 1984).

This paper discusses the role of the planetarium as an indispensable means of teaching astronomy and as an increasingly popular way of teaching science.

The double-mode or beat Cepheids form a group of some 10 variables at the short period end of the classical Cepheid period range, which exhibit two (or three) simultaneous pulsations with remarkably constant period ratio (see Table I). If, as seems likely, the two periods (P 0 and P 1,) are to be identified with fundamental and first-overtone radial oscillations, linear pulsation theory may be used to yield a mass and a radius estimate for each beat Cepheid (Mbear and Rbeat) based on period observations alone. The masses so obtained may be compared with two other Cepheid mass estimates: the pulsation mass, Mpuls , is derived by the application of pulsation theory to one observed stellar period (usually P 0) and a radius calculated from the stellar luminosity and temperature; the evolutionary mass, Mevol , is inferred from the stellar luminosity by the application of stellar evolution results (without mass loss) for Population I stars in the core helium-burning phase. If a Cepheid is a member of a cluster or association whose distance and reddening have been determined, the Cepheid luminosity and temperature may be obtained observationally, yielding Mpuls , and Mevol estimates directly. For other Cepheids, only indirect estimates may be made, based on the period-luminosity-colour relationship calibrated using the Cepheids with cluster membership.

Line absorption associated with the 12.2 GHz 20 − 3-1 transition of CH3OH has been mapped towards Sgr A with the Parkes 64-m radio telescope and a 2 arcmin beam. Two concentrations are present, both offset from the continuum peak, with velocities of 18 and 46 km s-1 and line-to-continuum ratios of 0.59 and 0.30. For the higher ratio the column density is almost 1017 cm-2. The concentrations may be associated with a molecular cloud which overlies Sgr A East but lies in part behind Sgr A West.