The classical model of the interstellar medium consists of cool clouds (typical temperature 80 K, number density 20-40 cm-3) moving through a warmer interstellar medium (104 K, 0.15-0.3 cm-3) at a rms velocity of ~ 10 km s-1. More recent models have included the coronal gas (106 K) as part of this medium. We consider the collisions of these clouds in order to determine whether these collisions initiate star formation and/or change the state of the interstellar medium.

We report on an initial survey of the cores of the Rho Ophiuchus and R Coronae Australis clouds, made with the AAT’s new IR array camera, IRIS. No turnover is seen in the initial luminosity function for ρ Oph to the sensitivity limit of the survey. Some implications for the low mass end of the initial mass function are discussed.

Globular clusters in the Galaxy are all old objects, with ages of about 1010 years. The LMC is quite different: its globular clusters have ages anywhere between about 5 × 106 years and 1010 years. It is important to find out why globular clusters can form now in the LMC but not in the Galaxy; the galactic globulars play a major role in our picture of the early history of the Galaxy, and it is obviously desirable that we should understand the conditions under which these clusters can form.

Free-free absorption by thermal electrons attenuates low frequency radio waves and such absorption will indicate the presence of ionized hydrogen. The Gum Nebula contains bright H-alpha emission regions and therefore it is not surprising that the region appears as an area of low brightness on low frequency continuum maps.

I would like to begin by saying what a pleasure it is for me to be here. For my entire adult life I have wanted to come to Australia. Actually, I have been invited to visit here twice before, but each time I was thwarted by circumstances beyond my control. But this time I was determined to (a) prove that the third time is indeed the charm, and (b) pay homage to Walter Stibbs, who in my mind is the epitome of a scholar and a gentleman. I have known Walter as colleague, teacher, and friend, not to mention as an inspiration, both professional and personal. So I am here today to try to give some sense of progress in the study of stellar atmospheres, a field that Walter has graced with his virtuosic touch. I will follow an unabashedly personal path, describing the development as I experienced it. I will focus almost entirely on early-type stars, where we may reasonably expect the atmospheric layers to be homogeneous, and in radiative equilibrium. Only at the end will I mention our nearest stellar neighbor, the Sun, which, because we can study it in so much detail, offers counterexamples to almost all of the the theory that works so well for early-type stars. I offer apologies in advance to anyone this approach may offend.

Four years ago a Table was shown in which the sensitivity of the Fleurs Synthesis Telescope (F.S.T.) was compared with that of three other radiotelescopes of similar resolvingpower (Christiansen 1972). At that time the high sensitivities quoted for the F.S.T., like those for all but one of the comparison telescopes were only theoretical since only the eastwest array of the F.S.T. was in operation and low noise r.f. amplifiers had not been installed. Now the telescope is in operation with characteristics close to those given in the Table quoted. Sources are mapped separately with the eastwest and north-south arrays and the two maps are combined. The combination produces maps with a resolution that isapproximately the same in declination and right ascension. This is unique amongst existing rotational synthesis telescopes. Some of these maps will be shown in papers now in preparation.

There are three non-thermal sources in the Large Magellanic Cloud which are recognized as supernova remnants. They are N49, N63A and N132D in Henize’s catalogue; a summary of their observing history is given by Westerlund and Mathewson (hereinafter referred to as ‘WM’). They are rather important to our knowledge of supernovae, as there are only four galactic supernova remnants (Cas A, the Crab, the Cygnus Loop and Vela) whose distances are known approximately from independent evidence. Since the distance to the LMC is well-known, the distance to sources in it is also known quite accurately.

The twenty years following the Second World War saw great changes in the research interests of the Observatory at Mount Stromlo, with the early emphasis on solar and geophysical phenomena giving way to stellar and galactic astrophysics. This paper traces the development of the astrophysical research work during the directorships of Woolley, who initiated the change of direction, and of Bok, who continued it. Apart from the shift in the Observatory’s research interests, these years were distinguished by (i) an outstanding period of telescope acquisition, which saw the commissioning of the 74 inch reflector, the 50 inch (formerly the Great Melbourne Telescope), the Yale/Columbia refractor (relocated from South Africa), and the Uppsala Schmidt; (ii) an Australia-wide site-testing programme and the consequent establishment of Siding Spring Observatory with the 40 inch, 24 inch and 16 inch reflectors (the site has subsequently, of course, also become the home of the Anglo-Australian Telescope, the U.K. Schmidt, and the ANU 2.3 m Advanced Technology Telescope); (iii) the incorporation of several major technological developments into the instrument complement of the Observatory, including photo-electric photometry, coudé spectroscopy, spectrum scanners, polarization instruments, and digital computers; (iv) the establishment of the link with the Australian National University and the consequent transformation of the Commonwealth Observatory into the Mount Stromlo Observatory; and (v) the setting up of a large and vigorous graduate school, comprising, at Bok’s departure, about fifteen PhD students on course.

Physical dimensions and evolutionary status of the A-type twin binary GSC 4019 3345 are presented. Located at a distance of ~1.1 kpc from the Sun, the system was found to have two components with identical masses (M1,2 = 1.92 M⊙), radii (R1,2 = 1.76 R⊙), and luminosities (log L1,2 = 1.1 L⊙) revolving in a circular orbit. Modeling the components with theoretical evolutionary tracks and isochrones implies a young age (t = 280 Myr) for the system, which is bigger than the synchronization time scale but smaller than the circularization time scale. Nevertheless, synthetic spectrum models revealed components’ rotation velocity of Vrot12 = 70 km s−1, that is about three times higher than their synchronization velocity. No evidence is found for an age difference between the components.

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 Astronomical Society of Australia was formally constituted at an Inaugural Meeting held at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, 30th November, 1966, in the Grounds of the University of Sydney.

We demonstrate the presence of a cluster of hot, population I stars at the very centre of the Galaxy, using the depth of the first overtone band of CO and the presence of emission in He I 2 ·058 μm and [Fell] 1·644μm to identify stars. The cluster is very compact and comprises at least several hundred stars. They lie close to the nonthermal radio source Sgr A* and dominate the luminosity and mass loss of the Galactic core. Their presence suggests that a starburst occurred at the Galactic centre.

Data from new Australia Telescope Compact Array observations of a nearby gigahertz peaked spectrum radio source, PKS 1718–649, show significant variability both below and above the spectral turnover frequency during a nine month period. Simple models of synchrotron self-absorption (SSA) and free–free absorption (FFA) cannot explain the individual spectra or the spectral variability. Novel SSA or FFA models will need to be investigated in order to explain the complex variability in this source. Some potential explanations for the spectral variability are explored here but we can make no strong conclusion about which of SSA or FFA (or alternative mechanisms) causes the peaked spectrum in PKS 1718–649.

A multipath mechanism similar to that used in Australia sixty years ago by the Sea-cliff Interferometer is shown to generate correlations between the periods of oscillations observed by two distant radio telescopes pointed to the Sun. The oscillations are the result of interferences between the direct wave detected in the main antenna lobe and its reflection on ground detected in a side lobe. A model is made of such oscillations in the case of two observatories located at equal longitudes and opposite tropical latitudes, respectively in Ha Noi (Viet Nam) and Learmonth (Australia), where similar radio telescopes are operated at 1.4 GHz. Simple specular reflection from ground is found to give a good description of the observed oscillations and to explain correlations that had been previously observed and for which no satisfactory interpretation, instrumental or other, had been found.

With the completion of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Key Project on the Extragalactic Distance Scale, it is interesting to form the dimensionless quantity H0t0 by multiplying the Hubble Constant by the age of the Universe. In a matter dominated decelerating Universe with a density exceeding 0·26 of the critical value, H0t0 < 1; in an accelerating Universe with the same Ωm = 0·26, but dominated by vacuum energy with ΩV ≥ 1 – Ωm, H0t0 ≥ 1. If the first globular clusters formed 109 years after the Big Bang, then with 95% confidence H0t0 =1·0 ± 0·3. The classical Einstein–de Sitter cosmological model has H0t0 = ⅔.

Radio observations of linear polarisation provide a useful probe of the physical conditions in the gaseous environments of compact steep spectrum (CSS) sources. Here, we present polarimetric VLBA observations at 8.4 GHz of the CSS quasar 3C 43. The jet in this source curves gently up to about 220 mas from the core, at which point it bends sharply, probably due to a jet–cloud encounter. Regions of polarised emission are detected along the jet, while the core component shows no significant polarisation.

In this review I present observational results of active galactic nuclei that my colleagues and I have recently obtained. I discuss their significance in terms of unification schemes and evolutionary scenarios.

The shape of emission lines in the optical spectra of star-forming galaxies reveals the kinematics of the diffuse gaseous component. We analyse the shape of prominent emission lines in a sample of $\sim$ 53000 star-forming galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, focusing on departures from gaussianity. Departures from a single gaussian profile allow us to probe the motion of gas and to assess the role of outflows. The sample is divided into groups according to their stellar velocity dispersion and star formation rate (SFR). The spectra within each group are stacked to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the emission lines, to remove individual signatures, and to enhance the effect of SFR on the shapes of the emission lines. The moments of the emission lines, including kurtosis and skewness, are determined. We find that most of the emission lines in strong star-forming systems unequivocally feature negative kurtosis. This signature is present in $\mathrm{H}\unicode{x03B2}$ , $\mathrm{H}\unicode{x03B1}$ , [N ii], and [S ii] in massive galaxies with high SFRs. We attribute it as evidence of radial outflows of ionised gas driven by the star formation of the galaxies. Also, most of the emission lines in low-mass systems with high SFRs feature negative skewness, and we interpret it as evidence of dust obscuration in the galactic disk. These signatures are however absent in the [O iii] line, which is believed to trace a different gas component. The observed trend is significantly stronger in face-on galaxies, indicating that star formation drives the outflows along the galactic rotation axis, presumably the path of least resistance. The data suggest that outflows driven by star formation exert accumulated impacts on the interstellar medium, and the outflow signature is more evident in older galaxies as they have experienced a longer total duration of star formation.

We present source detection and catalogue construction pipelines to build the first catalogue of radio galaxies from the 270 $\rm deg^2$ pilot survey of the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU-PS) conducted with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. The detection pipeline uses Gal-DINO computer vision networks (Gupta et al. 2024, PASA, 41, e001) to predict the categories of radio morphology and bounding boxes for radio sources, as well as their potential infrared host positions. The Gal-DINO network is trained and evaluated on approximately 5 000 visually inspected radio galaxies and their infrared hosts, encompassing both compact and extended radio morphologies. We find that the Intersection over Union (IoU) for the predicted and ground-truth bounding boxes is larger than 0.5 for 99% of the radio sources, and 98% of predicted host positions are within $3^{\prime \prime}$ of the ground-truth infrared host in the evaluation set. The catalogue construction pipeline uses the predictions of the trained network on the radio and infrared image cutouts based on the catalogue of radio components identified using the Selavy source finder algorithm. Confidence scores of the predictions are then used to prioritise Selavy components with higher scores and incorporate them first into the catalogue. This results in identifications for a total of 211 625 radio sources, with 201 211 classified as compact and unresolved. The remaining 10 414 are categorised as extended radio morphologies, including 582 FR-I, 5 602 FR-II, 1 494 FR-x (uncertain whether FR-I or FR-II), 2 375 R (single-peak resolved) radio galaxies, and 361 with peculiar and other rare morphologies. Each source in the catalogue includes a confidence score. We cross-match the radio sources in the catalogue with the infrared and optical catalogues, finding infrared cross-matches for 73% and photometric redshifts for 36% of the radio galaxies. The EMU-PS catalogue and the detection pipelines presented here will be used towards constructing catalogues for the main EMU survey covering the full southern sky.

We present the first results obtained from an extensive study of eclipsing binary (EB) system candidates recently detected in the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) near-infrared (NIR) Survey. We analyse the VVV tile d040 in the southern part of the Galactic disc wherein the interstellar reddening is comparatively low, which makes it possible to detect hundreds of new EB candidates. We present here the light curves and the determination of the geometric and physical parameters of the best candidates found in this ‘NIR window’, including 37 contact, 50 detached, and 13 semi-detached EB systems. We infer that the studied systems have an average of the $K_s$ amplitudes of $0.8$ mag and a median period of 1.22 days where, in general, contact binaries have shorter periods. Using the ‘Physics Of Eclipsing Binaries’ (PHOEBE) interactive interface, which is based on the Wilson and Devinney code, we find that the studied systems have low eccentricities. The studied EBs present mean values of about 5 700 and 4 900 K for the $T_1$ and $T_2$ components, respectively. The mean mass ratio (q) for the contact EB stars is $\sim$ 0.44. This new galactic disk sample is a first look at the massive study of NIR EB systems.