Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T18:46:29.814Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Importance of Accurate Positions in the QSO Story

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

H.S. Murdoch*
Affiliation:
School of Physics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006

Extract

Who discovered QSOs? What was the first QSO discovered? To Maarten Schmidt (1963) goes the credit for realising that the emission lines he saw in a 13 mag star were the Balmer series in hydrogen at a redshift of 0.158. The first QSO had been recognised. But discovery is a complex process. Schmidt observed the ‘star’ because it was associated with a radio source 3C 273 by means of an accurate radio position. This was the first of several instances where accurate radio positions have enabled significant progress in the QSO story.

Type
History of Australian Astronomy
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adgie, R.L., Crowther, J.H. and Gent, H., 1972, Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc., 159, 273.Google Scholar
Bolton, J.G., 1990, Proc. Astron. Soc. Aust., 8, 381.Google Scholar
Carswell, R.F. and Strittmatter, P.A., 1973, Nature, 242, 394.Google Scholar
Clarke, T.W., Frater, R.H., Large, M.I., Munro, R.E.B. and Murdoch, H.S., 1969, Aust. J. Phys., Astrophys. Suppl. No 10.Google Scholar
Crowther, J.H., 1973, Nature, 243, 25.Google Scholar
Gearhart, M.J., Lund, J.M., Franz, D.J. and Kraus, J.F., 1972, Astrophys. J., 77, 557.Google Scholar
Gent, H., Crowther, J.H., Adgie, R.L., Hoskins, D.G., Murdoch, H.S. Hazard, C. and Jauncey, D.L., 1973, Nature, 243, 261.Google Scholar
Greenstein, J. and Matthews, T., 1963, Nature, 197, 1041.Google Scholar
Jauncey, D.L., Batty, M.J., Gulkis, S. and Savage, A., 1982, Astron. J., 87, 763.Google Scholar
Hazard, C., Mackey, B.M. and Shimmins, A.J., 1963, Nature, 197, 1037.Google Scholar
Hoskins, D.G., Murdoch, H.S., Hazard, C. and Jauncey, D.L., 1972, Aust. J. Phys., 25, 559.Google Scholar
Lynds, C.R. and Wills, D., 1970, Nature, 226, 532.Google Scholar
Matthews, T.A., Bolton, J.G., Greenstein, J.L., Munch, G. and Sandage, A., 1960, unscheduled paper presented to the American Astronomical Society meeting in New York, Dec 1960. This paper was not published among the abstracts in Astronomical Journal but a brief account attributed to Sandage appeared in Sky and Telescope, 1961, 21, 148.Google Scholar
Peterson, B.A., Savage, A., Jauncey, D.L. and Wright, A.E., 1982, Astrophys. J. Lett., 260, L27.Google Scholar
Preston, R., 1988, Mercury, 17, No. 6, p. 2.Google Scholar
Schmidt, M., 1963, Nature, 197, 1040.Google Scholar
Schmidt, M., 1983, in Serendipitous Discoveries in Radio Astronomy, Kellermann, K. and Sheets, B. (eds), NRAO, Green Bank, p. 171.Google Scholar
Veron, M.P., 1971, Astron. Astrophys., 11, 1.Google Scholar
Wade, C.M., Astrophys. J., 1970, 162, 381.Google Scholar
Wade, C.M., Gent, H., Adgie, R.L. and Crowther, J.H., Nature, 228, 146.Google Scholar
Wampler, E.J., Robinson, L.B., Baldwin, J. and Burbidge, E.M., 1973, Nature, 243, 739.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Witzel, A., Veron, P. and Veron, M.P., 1971, Astron. Astrophys., 11, 171.Google Scholar