Radio Observations of Flare Stars

Extract

Observations of the radio emission from the red dwarf flare stars in the solar neighbourhood have been made at Jodrell Bank since 1958. In Australia, observations have been made both of these flare stars and of the early type flare stars in stellar aggregates. Observations in both Britain and Australia have been hampered by the difficulties involved in obtaining radio and optical coverage at the same time.

In the initial Jodrell Bank programme, at a frequency of 240 mhz, between 1958 and 1960, 474 hours of observations were obtained, mostly on UV Ceti, and 13 events compatible with bursts of radio emission from the star were seen, but due to poor seeing conditions at the Cambridge Observatories the correlation between radio and optical flares could not be established, although the rate of occurence of radio events was similar to the reported rate for optical events of a few magnitudes.