Type II solar bursts characteristically drift slowly from high to low frequencies at a rate of about 0.1 MHz/s, appear only at frequencies lower than 250 MHz, and frequently have harmonic structure, i.e. there are identifiable spectral features within the fundamental which are duplicated at twice the frequency. Thus it is clear that at least in some cases, true harmonic radiation is involved; the source region emits frequencies f and 2f simultaneously.

Survey type observations have been made with the Parkes radio-telescope of 4 galactic radio sources having either a non-thermal radio spectrum, or exhibiting shell structure in their emitting regions. Observations were made at a wavelength of 11 cm using the Parkes radiotelescope where the beamwidth is about 7.5 min.arc.

We describe a survey of metal rich K-giants at the SGP, and show how they can be used as a simple isothermal tracing population to derive the local density of matter and the component of acceleration K z perpendicular to the galactic plane.

The galactic nuclear bulge is a well defined population, but it is one that is relatively difficult to study in detail because its members never stray into the solar vicinity and they are both distant and obscured. Mould (1982) has summarized much of our knowledge of the masses and composition of stars in the bulge. The red giants resemble those in metal-rich old open clusters and the late M giants are either younger than galactic globular clusters or super-metal-rich or both. Whitford and Rich (1983) have demonstrated the existence of K-giants that are super-metal-rich in iron and Wood and Bessell (1983) have interpreted the properties of a sample of long period variables in the bulge as those of a young, super-metal-rich population.

The ‘holographic’ technique for accurately measuring the surface figure of large reflector antennas, described by Bennet et al, (1976) and Scott and Ryle (1977), has many advantages over older conventional survey methods. These include high speed, low cost, and the absence of any need for additional complex mechanical or optical survey devices. In essence, the technique consists of measuring the complex far-field response of the antenna at a single frequency using a terrestrial, satellite-borne or celestial radiation source of small angular diameter. This two-dimensional pattern is then Fourier-transformed to yield the complex illumination function across the antenna aperture. Antenna surface deviations are manifested as phase fluctuations in this function. In practice, a second antenna is needed to provide a phase reference.

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.