In the five years since the last invited paper on model stellar atmosphere applications there have been many significant advances made on all fronts. The five aspects which I will cover in this paper are:

• (1) the results of white dwarf model atmosphere investigations;

• (2) the results of the inclusion of non LTE phenomena in the atmosphere computations of hot (T > 15,000 K) stars;

• (3) the probable understanding of the cause of peculiar abundance patterns in the Ap and Bp and Am stars;

• (4) the advances in theory and observations of cool star atmospheres; and

• (5) the use of synthetic spectra and colours.

Observational astronomy extends, in terms of energy in the electromagnetic spectrum, from below 10-8eV to above 108eV. Studies of cosmic rays extend this range to the neighbourhood of 1019eV (about a Joule) and the aspects of high energy astrophysics discussed in the present paper are those concerned with cosmic rays of energy upwards of about 1015eV.

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.

This paper gives a short description and interpretation of some solar magneto-hydrodynamical and plasma phenomena, based mainly on work by the writer and his collaborators (for an extended review see Kaplan et al. 1974).

The magnetic field is considered as the main factor responsible for a number of manifestations of solar activity. At the photospheric level active regions are displayed as plages, i.e., bright areas, seen near the limb. This means that the temperature gradient in plages is smaller than in the undisturbed photosphere. The decrease in gradient is a result of an increase of convective transport of energy.

The organization of the Anglo-Australian Telescope Project and the major features of the telescope design have been reported previously so only a brief description of the design aspects most relevant to the potential user will be given here.

In April 1967 the British and Australian Governments agreed jointly to build and operate a 150-inch (3.8m) optical telescope on Siding Spring Mountain, 16 miles west of Coonabarabran, N.S.W., where the Australian National University has an established observatory. To direct the construction and subsequent operation of the new telescope it was decided to create a statutory authority to be known as the Anglo-Australian Telescope Board. Pending the formation of this board, the two Governments, acting through the Department of Education and Science in Canberra and the Science Research Council in London, set up a joint policy committee to initiate the project.

In the past decade, planetary nebulae have assumed considerable importance in elucidating our understanding of the final stages of stellar evolution at low mass. This began with the work of Shklovsky, O’Dell and Seaton, who showed not only that the nuclei of these nebulae were among the hottest stellar objects, but also that they evolved on a track in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (the Harman-Seaton sequence) on a time scale very rapid by stellar evolutionary standards (~ 20,000 years).

Like the strong non-thermal radio bursts from the solar corona and from the earth’s magnetosphere, the Jupiter radio bursts are characterized by their duration which may be from milliseconds to seconds, and by their complex structure on the frequency-time plane. In addition, they exhibit a variety of periodicities in their rate of occurrence, the primary one of which is associated with the rotation of Jupiter. The smaller physical scale of Jupiter compared with the Sun naturally leads to a much shorter time scale in the various radio phenomena and it is only recently that suitable equipment has become available to permit the detailed investigation of the dynamic spectra of the bursts with the necessary high time resolution of the order of 10–3 sec (Ellis 1973a,b,c). As in the case of the solar radio bursts, a number of distinct types of dynamic spectra are observed and they provide a convenient basis for classification.

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 few years ago Fowler (1972) published a paper in which he proposed two ‘desperate explanations’ for the solar neutrino problem. Desperation continues to be characteristic of the subject, for, in spite of many investigations over recent years, there is still no unambiguously successful model satisfying all the observational features of the Sun and giving a predicted neutrino count rate below the Davis (1972) experimental limit.

One of the main reasons for pursuing a gravitational as opposed to a magnetic theory is that there exist galaxies which seem devoid of gas and yet show unmistakable structure. These galaxies are among those classified as SBO2/3 to SBa(r), and I shall, after Curtis, call them theta galaxies. Examples are: NGC 1512, 1291,4693, and 2859. The theta galaxies gradually merge into ringed bar galaxies, which in turn merge into ordinary spirals.

Last year I described pairs of spherical mirrors that remove the coma and astigmatism in the image formed by a paraboloid mirror and leave the spherical aberration corrected. The investigation can be extended to deal with other shapes of primary mirror, for example the hyperboloid primary of the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The algebraic analysis becomes more complicated than for a paraboloid; but it still has the feature that at an early stage a cubic equation has to be solved, each real root of which gives rise to a second cubic. Thus in principle the mathematics could lead to nine solutions. However, it again turns out that not all the roots are real; and even for the real roots not all the solutions are physically useful, because in some cases the final image is virtual, and in others the tertiary mirror lies behind the secondary where light can not reach it. When the primary is a paraboloid, there are three useable solutions all with the property that the field corrector (consisting of the pair of spherical mirrors) can simply be scaled up or down at the user’s pleasure according to the diameter of the field he wishes to photograph. When the primary is of any other shape this is no longer possible.

The subject of extraterrestrial civilizations is relevant to astronomy in two ways. Firstly, the very existence of life outside Earth is dependent upon the picture that astronomers can draw of the Universe, and we will see how that picture allows us to be very optimistic. Then, if we think that there are intelligent beings in space, the detection of signals from them is an astronomical problem, and we will see that it most probably concerns radio astronomers.

Introduction

My interest in the construction and costs of telescopes began with the design and construction of the building for the 48 inch Schmidt Telescope (on behalf of the Science Research Council of the United Kingdom) and was stimulated by a visit to Mt Palomar and Kitt Peak Observatories. With regard to costs I would like to quote Meinel (1969).

An optical astronomical facility is being established near Hobart where the emphasis is being placed upon spectroscopy. A 40 cm telescope and Coudé spectrograph is already operational, and the 100 cm instrument will be operational by mid-1973. In this paper discussion is restricted to the 100 cm instrumentation.

The U.K. Schmidt telescope is one of three independent ‘observatories’ now on Siding Spring Mountain near Coonabarabran, and is operated by the United Kingdom Science Research Council. The telescope has been fully operational since September 1973. So far we have taken about 800 astronomical plates, about half being for the main IllaJ Survey and half for other scientific programmes. The latter have mostly been taken when the moon or mediocre seeing have prevented us working on the Survey.

The observation of the X-ray sky from balloons, rockets, and satellites has led to the discovery of more than 100 X-ray sources. Optical and radio identifications have been made for about a dozen of these. A few X-ray sources are of extra-galactic origin, but the majority are objects in the Galaxy.

Geomagnetic storm sudden commencements (ssc) and sudden increases (si) can be caused by either a propagating discontinuity (i.e. a hydromagnetic shock or blast wave) in the interplanetary plasma or by the convection past the Earth of a discontinuity in the ambient solar plasma flow.

It is well known that a molecular cloud complex with a radial velocity of 40 km s–1 is located in front of and near Sgr A, the non-thermal source at the centre of our galaxy. The motion of this cloud is generally interpreted as a contraction towards the centre. In terms of the general kinematics of our galaxy the existence of contraction is not firmly established – the main spiral features are either stationary with respect to the local standard of rest or expanding outwards from the centre (e.g., the 4 kpc expanding arm). However, as a result of a high-resolution study of the H2CO absorption arising in the molecular cloud, an alternative interpretation not involving contraction is suggested.

Phase coherent interferometers with intercontinental baselines became possible because of the development of stable frequency standards. With sufficiently stable frequency standards, no connection is necessary between the two ends of an interferometer. The first VLBI experiments were conducted by a group at the University of Florida who used an intensity interferometer with independent tape recorders for observations of Jupiter. Later, they changed to a coherent system using crystal-controlled oscillators. Since then, several interferometer systems have been developed. A Canadian group developed a system using video tape recorders at each end of the interferometer. They recorded the data in analogue form and managed to bring the two tapes together and to synchronize them to an accuracy of better than a microsecond. After synchronization, the outputs were combined and fringes extracted. Their system has a bandwidth of about 4 MHz. No-one else has attempted a wide-band analogue system.