The high time-resolution radio sky represents unexplored astronomical territory. This thesis presents a study of the transient radio sky, focussing on millisecond scales. As such, the work is concerned primarily with neutron stars. In particular this research concentrates on a recently identified group of neutron stars, known as RRATs, which exhibit radio bursts every few minutes to every few hours. After analysing neutron star birthrates, a re-analysis of the Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey is described which has resulted in the discovery of 19 new transient radio sources. Of these, 12 have been seen to repeat and a follow-up campaign of observations has been undertaken. These studies have greatly increased our knowledge of the rotational properties of RRATs and enable us to conclude that they are pulsars with extreme nulling and/or pulse-to-pulse modulation. Although the evolution of neutron stars post-supernova is not yet understood, it seems that RRATs fit into the emerging picture in which pulsar magnetospheres switch between stable configurations.

This book summarizes the gathering of information on and the growing understanding of M33 from the 1920s, when Hubble first determined its true nature, to the 21st century, when the Hubble Telescope probed deeply into its many secrets. With its regular symmetrical spiral structure, and its being not tilted too much and near enough to allow detailed studies of its stars, M33 is well-suited for the study of a typical spiral galaxy. In this work, Paul Hodge places current research on M33 (and similar galaxies) in both historical and global perspectives. The book is written in a language accessible for specialists and non-specialists, for professional and amateur astronomers, for scientists and the curious public and, most importantly, for students.

This book addresses physicists working in general relativity, astrophysics and cosmology. The contributions are based on reports given at a summer school the goal of which was to review modern research for students. The school was centered on the study of gravitational fields corresponding to rotating objects of astrophysical interest, under different viewpoints: theoretical, numerical and observational. Special emphasis is put on the analysis of interior and exterior fields of stationary axisymmetric systems. Lectures and contributions, collected here in Part I, ranged from basic information useful to newcomers to technical points pertaining to current research in this area. Part II contains lectures and contributions on other aspects of gravitation theory.

This is the second ESO workshop in aseries dedicated to science oppor tunities with the VLT. At the first workshop all areas of astronomical research were discussed. This second workshop is dedicated to research projects on the early Universe and has provided a forum for discussing strategies for studying faint distant objects in the optical and infrared spectral regions. This field is evolving very rapidly. There are several new surveys of galax ies and clusters of galaxies at intermediate redshift and quasars at very high redshift. Major advances in the morphological studies of distant galaxies, surveys of galaxies at high redshift and searches for primeval galaxies have been rendered possible by the new facilities provided by the Rubble Space Telescope and the Keck Telescope. Observational constraints on the evolution and formation of galaxies and large-scale structures as well as the cosmic chemical evolution were criti cally discussed with regard to theory and numerical simulations. In this context, the VLT first generation instrument capabilities were presented comprehensively and their use as cosmological tools discussed . The concluding remarks of the workshop focussed on the analysis of var ious possibilities for the VLT second generation instrumentation. Many of these topics were covered by invited reviews and talks, as well as some contributed talks. They are included in this volume together with the poster papers.

This is an exhaustive survey of present-day solar research including both theory and observations. It deals with eruptive flares, filament eruption in x-rays and radio waves, energy release and transport, and terrestrial response to solar flares. Details of the most recent SOLAR-A project (launched shortly after the conference) are also presented.

Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts, which has appeared in semi-annual volumes since 1969, is de voted to the recording, summarizing and indexing of astronomical publications throughout the world. It is prepared under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (according to a resolution adopted at the 14th General Assembly in 1970). Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts aims to present a comprehensive documentation of literature in all fields of astronomy and astrophysics. Every effort will be made to ensure that the averagetime interval between the date of receipt of the original literature and publication ofthe abstracts will not exceed eight months. This time interval is near to that achieved by monthly abstracting journals, com pared to which our system of accumulating abstracts for about six months offers the advantage of greater convenience for the user. Volume 17 contains literature published in 1976 and received before August 15, 1976; some older literature which was received late and which is not recorded in earlier volumes is also included. We acknowledge with thanks contributions to this volume by Dr. J. Bouska, who surveyed journals and publications in the Czech languageand supplied us with abstracts in English, and by the Common wealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (C.S.I.R.O.), Sydney, for providing titles and abstracts of papers on radio astronomy. We want to acknowledge valuable contributions to this vol ume by Zentralstelle fur Atomkernenergie-Dokumentation, Leopoldshafen, which supported our ab stracting service by sending us retrospective literature searches."

This volume gives and excellent survey of our present knowledge of molecularprocesses in stellar and proto-stellar objects. It reviews molecular physicsin stellar environments and is intended to bridge the gap between astrophysicists and chemists. The topics range from the theoretical to the computational and include observational data. Among the topics treated are questions of stellar evolution, the determination of physical propertiesand structures , and the chemical composition of stellar protospheres. Opacity is studied in the context of various types of stellar and proto-stellar objects.

The study of the magnetic fields of the Earth and Sun, as well as those of other planets, stars, and galaxies, has a long history and a rich and varied literature, including in recent years a number of review articles and books dedicated to the dynamo theories of these fields. Against this background of work, some explanation of the scope and purpose of the present monograph, and of the presentation and organization of the material, is therefore needed. Dynamo theory offers an explanation of natural magnetism as a phenomenon of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), the dynamics governing the evolution and interaction of motions of an electrically conducting fluid and electromagnetic fields. A natural starting point for a dynamo theory assumes the fluid motion to be a given vector field, without regard for the origin of the forces which drive it. The resulting kinematic dynamo theory is, in the non-relativistic case, a linear advection-diffusion problem for the magnetic field. This kinematic theory, while far simpler than its magnetohydrodynamic counterpart, remains a formidable analytical problem since the interesting solutions lack the easiest symmetries. Much ofthe research has focused on the simplest acceptable flows and especially on cases where the smoothing effect of diffusion can be exploited. A close analog is the advection and diffusion of a scalar field by laminar flows, the diffusion being measured by an appropriate Peclet number. This work has succeeded in establishing dynamo action as an attractive candidate for astrophysical magnetism.

This book addresses graduate students in astronomy and astrophysics. The first part is devoted to galactic high-energy astrophysics. It treats particle accelerations (including shocks), the interstellar medium and supernovae remnants, high-energy emissions from normal stars and accretion in close binaries. The second part deals with observationslike pulsar timing, and its measurement with radioastronomical tools, and astrometry, as performed in the HIPPARCOS satellite program.

Recent research on the solar-stellar system has been triggered by a host of recent observational data, in particular from space based observations. For this conference the major topics selected centered on new measurement capabilities (magnetic fields and infrared, with specific emphasis on the new IRAS results), important classes of stars (F stars, M dwarfs and giants, and pre-main sequence stars), and interesting unanswered questions (the nature of nonthermal phenomena, heating processes, angular momentum evolution, and the existence and cause of the corona/wind dividing line). Each section is opened by two or more invited lectures aimed at a wide audience, including graduate students, and continues with some research papers. The proceedings also record the two general discussions on the role of magnetic fields in cool star atmospheres and the role of monitoring programs for studies of cool stars (see also Lecture Notes in Physics Vol. 292).

Recent advances in observational and theoretical efforts in understanding the nature of cataclysmic variables had reached such maturity that there existed a strong, shared feeling among the workers in this field that an international colloquium sponsored by the International Astronomical Union would be timely. To be more specific, this was due primarily to the accumulation of the new data from satellite observatories, such as the International Ultraviolet Observatory (IUE) and EXOSAT, as well as ground-based optical and radio telescopes, and the advances in modeling the putative accretion disks and the thermo-nuclear run-away phenomena in the vinicity of the white dwarf stars in cataclysmic variables. A series of workshops on this subject held in North America over the past several years and that held in Europe in 1985 had all contributed to the advances in our knowledge that led to IAU Colloguium No. 93, held in Bamberg from the 16th to 19th of June 1986. In all, 157 astronomers from 27 countries participated in this conference. Judging from the papers presented, both invited and contributed, and from the enthusiasm seen in discussions, the meeting was indeed a success.

The articles collected in this volume cover topics ranging from Planck-scale physics to galaxy clustering. They deal with various new ideas from cosmology, astrophysics and particle physics that might lead to a better understanding of our physical universe. Among the topics covered are inflationary models, nucleosynthesis, dark matter, large-scale clustering, cosmic microwave background radiations and more. The book addresses researchers but it also gives a good overview of the subject for graduate students in astrophysics and particle physics.

In this volume seven leading theoreticians and experimenters review the origin of the asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the Big Bang, solar neutrinos, the physics of enormous densities and temperatures in stars and of immense magnetic fields around collapsed stars, strong electric fields in heavy ion collisions, and the extreme conditions in quark-gluon plasmas. The articles address nuclear and particle physicists, especially graduate students, but also astrophysicists and cosmologists, since they have to deal with events under the extreme physical conditions discussed here.

Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit, The sky is, up above the roof, Si bleu, si calme So blue, so calm Un arbre, par-dessus Je toit, A tree there, up above the roof, Berce sa palme. Waves leaves of palm. La cloche, dans le ciel qu'on voit, A church bell, in the sky I see, Doucement tinte. Softly tolls. Un oiseau, sur l'arbre qu'on voit, A bird, upon the tree I see, Chante sa plainte. Sadly calls. PAUL VERLAINE Like Verlaine, we are in prison. The prison is our Earth, "which is so pretty"; our atmosphere and its clouds, its "marvellous clouds." (You would think that Verlaine, Prevert and Baudelaire had been comparing notes ) The sky is up above the roof... A tree there, up above the roof... Stars in the sky, like birds ... their rays, like bells (and here we are with Apollinaire ) What we see opens the way to what we guess at; what we observe Ieads us towards the unobservable. A poem releases images, and the invisible grows big with reality. Astronomcrs are a little like poets (indirectly from the Greek 7tostco, make): they make the universe by interpreting messages, extrapolating spectra, and inventing 'models' of the cosmos or of stars - fictional constructions whose observable part constitutes only a small fraction of the whole, and which only the inductive logic of the theoretician allows us to consider as representing unique physical reality.

The present volume colleets the review and contributed papers presented at the Europhysics Study Conferenee "Acere- tion Disks and Magnetie Fields in Astrophysies" held in Noto, Sicily, Italy, from 16 to 21 June 1988, under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republie and the 10ea1 patronage of the Cent ro di Studi Superiori e di Rieer- ehe (Center for Advaneed Study and Research), a seientific institution supported by the City of Nota and the Oniversity of Catania. The attendanee to the Conferenee was limited to about fifty seleeted partieipants from Canada, China, Denmark, Franee, Germany F.R., Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sl~itzerland. Onited Kingdom and Onited States, in order to give the meeting the character and appearance of areal lolorkshop, whose main aim was to highl ight a varied but same wh at uni fied picture of the interact ion, in di fferent astrophysical systems, of rotation, turbulenee and magnetism, with speeifie referenee to aeeretion disks.

The universe is the largest system of all. It consists of elementary particles bound together by gravitational, electromagnetic and nuclear forces. Its structural hierar chy in space (from atomic nuclei to supergalaxies) and its evolutionary sequence (from the fireball to the diversity of present forms) is governed by the properties of elementary particles and their interactions. This book is an attempt to interpret the structure and evolution of the universe in terms of elementary particles and of their interactions. This book is intended to present a background for students in astronomy and related sciences, such as geophysics, meteorology, plasma physics, chemistry, nuc lear physics, space sciences and some others. The universe forms a general framework fo: all the phenomena studied by these sciences. It was possible to squeeze an extensive range of topics from various disciplines into one book of acceptable size only under some severe limitations: (a) no references are given; (b) arguments are shortcut; (c) quantities are often expressed in the order of magnitude; and (d) formulae have been limited to a minimum. Often more hypo theses or theories exist for a phenomenon. We have chosen only one. The preference for a theory or hypothesis may be personal and the theory itself may later prove incorrect. But, many theories about a particular phenomenon would cover many pages and might lead to confusing effects."

The articles in this book deal with energetic hadron processes near astrophysical compact objects, including compact binary systems and active galactic nuclei. A variety of observational results suggest that relativistic hadrons can be produced in the vicinity of these objects. Amongthe topics treated in detail are the question whether a large fraction of the energy produced by active galactic nuclei is channeled into a population of relativistic protons and the problem of the origin of very high and ultra-high energy gamma rays from galactic compact sources.

The nationally recognized credit-by-exam DSST (R) program helps students earn college credits for learning acquired outside the traditional classroom such as; learning from on-the-job training, reading, or independent study. DSST (R) tests offer students a cost-effective, time-saving way to use the knowledge they've acquired outside of the classroom to accomplish their education goals. Peterson's (R) Master the (TM) DSST (R) Astronomy Exam provides a general overview of the subjects students will encounter on the exam such as the history of the Science of Astronomy, Astrophysics, Celestial Systems, the Science of Light, Planetary Systems, Nature and Evolution of the Sun and Stars, Galaxies and the Universe. This valuable resource includes: Diagnostic pre-test with detailed answer explanations Assessment Grid designed to help identify areas that need focus Subject Matter Review proving a general overview of the subjects, followed by a review of the relevant topics and terminology covered on the exam Post-test offering 60 questions all with detailed answer explanations Key information about the DSST (R) such as, what to expect on test day and how to register and prepare for the DSST (R)

This collection of papers presents a rather complete review of current knowledge of hot spots in some strong extragalactic radio sources. An overview of known results along with new data on radio observations and optical observations is given in the first and second parts of the book. Recent computational techniques which allow modelling and simulations of hot spots and jet behaviour are presented in the third part. The fourth part discusses particle acceleration and shock front phenomena. The articles will help the reader to appreciate the role hot spots play as laboratories for studying the interaction of jets with the surrounding medium and for testing our understanding of the overall source dynamics. The book is a valuable complement to the existing literature and an excellent introduction to this fairly new field of research.

The observational evidence for the existence of black holes has grown significantly over recent decades. Stellar-mass black holes are detected as X-ray sources in binary systems, while supermassive black holes, with masses more than a million times the mass of the Sun, lurk in the nuclei of galaxies. These proceedings provide a useful and up-to-date overview of the observations of black holes in binaries, in the center of the Milky Way, and in the nuclei of galaxies, presented by leading expert astronomers. Special attention is given to the formation (including the recent evidence from gamma-ray bursts), physical properties, and demographics of black holes.

This outstanding collection of surveys addresses graduate and predoctoral students. It reports on theoretical research and observational data on active galactic nuclei: The enigma of the nuclei of galaxies with their central "monster" driving the vast range of activity observed in quasars, radio galaxies, Seyferts, starburst galaxies and even our own Galaxy are explored in this volume. Topics covered include: the impact of recent measurements in the infrared and radio region on our knowledge of thenucleus of our Galaxy; the spectra and classification of active galactic nuclei, the properties of their host galaxies, their cosmological distribution and evolution, the role of stars and thehydrodynamics of the interstellar medium in the nuclei; the description of the inner parsec of a standard active galactic nucleus based on direct interpretation of the observations; the infrared activity of galaxies; the physics of radio galaxies and their jets, emphasizing the physics ofgas flow and high-energy particle interactions as well as shock acceleration. These are all discussed in considerable depth and presented inself-contained chapters with exhaustive reference lists of the scientific literature.

Extinction and standardization corrections to infrared measurements are of the utmost importance in astronomy. Various views on these concepts and problems of implementation in infrared photometry are discussed thoroughly and recommendations are presented. Among these are: the adoption of narrower broad-band "Johnson" filters that are better centered in the atmospheric water windows than is currently the case; the measurements of atmospheric water vapor content concurrent with the astronomical measurements; the use of appropriate atmospheric models to treat the extinction adequately; and the publication of complete details of the systemic passbands and their transformability to other systems. To conclude the volume, R. Bell summarizes and comments on the contributions to the symposium, and the editor adds a concluding postscript on post-meeting developments and perspectives.