The recent discovery of two distant satellites of Uranus suggests that there could be similar bodies orbiting Neptune. Previous surveys for distant satellites of Neptune have had relatively bright magnitude limits (BJ ≃ 20·5) and would have missed satellites with magnitudes and colours similar to the two recently discovered Uranian satellites (R ~ 20·4 and R ~ 21·9). We have searched for satellites of Neptune to a limiting magnitude of R ~ 21 in a 0·1□° region centred on the planet. This search is up to ~ 2 magnitudes deeper than the previous wide field search for distant satellites by the UK Schmidt Telescope. Nereid was easily recovered by the search and no large variations of its magnitude were detected.

Measurements of cosmic ray directional properties at about 1015 eV in both northern and southern hemispheres confirm that those particles have a unidirectional anisotropy and are flowing along the direction of our spiral arm from the inner Galactic regions. On the basis of diffusive cosmic ray flow along the Galactic arms, the power required for the Galaxy to maintain this flow is below 1030 W.

The appearance of Tech Pan film in sizes that were useful in large Schmidt telescopes immediately offered new opportunities and advantages to users of Schmidt telescopes. Among the advantages were a spatial resolution that was well matched to the image quality produced by the optics of the telescope under the best conditions. For the first time such images were well sampled on Schmidt telescopes. Tech Pan was initially formulated by Eastman Kodak as a 35 mm solar patrol film designed to have enhanced sensitivity around the 656·2 nm Hα line. It is this feature, combined with the excellent imaging characteristics, that we seek to exploit with the new UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST) Hα survey. This paper briefly reports some preliminary comparative tests of Tech Pan with the new Hα filter at UKST and suggests ways in which data from the new survey can be quickly exploited using advanced photographic techniques such as photographic amplification. This simple contact copying process rapidly reveals extended low surface brightness features that simple inspection cannot.

The nature of a singularity in a cool, gravitation-free axisymmetrical, relativistic, steady pulsar wind is further investigated, in line with the recent counter-argument of Ardavan (1995, hereafter A95) that the pure Alfvén ‘singularity’ has an equal importance to the Alfvén singularity if one defines the singularity via a quadratic form rather than using the ratio as adopted by Li & Melrose (1994). The pure Alfvénic point in A95 coincides with the proposed characteristic point through which a continuous wind will meet the star and infinity. However, we find that the critical point as implied in the quadratic form is in fact the intermediate point (Ardavan 1979), but not the pure Alfvénic point. Thus the analysis of A95 does not indicate any significance of the pure Alfvénic point. We also demonstrate that the intermediate point which appears in the quadratic form of A95 is not genuine.

We plan to digitise the AAO/UKST Hα survey of the Southern sky using the SuperCOSMOS facility at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. The digitisation will be performed at 10 microns resolution (0·67 arcsec), and will result in a database of 275 Gbyte of pixel data for the 200 fields of the survey. These data will be processed to produce also a point source catalogue. As the Hα survey is an official AAO sky survey, both the pixel data and the point source catalogue will be made available to the community as a service facility. We give details of the digitisation process, archiving of the resulting data and the plans for dissemination of the database.

A cloud monitor has been developed for use with cosmic ray air shower fluorescence detectors, the High Resolution Fly's Eye and the Pierre Auger Observatory. This is based on an infrared thermopile device which, unlike previous such monitors, requires no moving chopper and is suitable for unattended operation over long periods of time.

The small degree of circular polarisation observed in some synchrotron sources has a frequency dependence that is not consistent with simple predictions based on the intrinsic circular polarisation of synchrotron emission. The suggestion is explored that the circular polarisation arises as a propagation effect within the source. The physical basis of this alternative mechanism is the fact that the natural wave modes of a synchrotron emitting gas are linearly polarised, allowing partial conversion of linear into circular polarisation as in a quarter-wave plate. A relativistic rotation measure (RRM) is defined to characterise the magnitude of this effect.

The Taurus Tunable Filter (TTF) is a tunable narrowband interference filter covering wavelengths from 6300 Å to the sensitivity drop-off of conventional CCDs (∼9600 Å), although a blue ‘arm’ (4000–6500 Å) is to be added by the end of 1997. The TTF offers monochromatic imaging at the Cassegrain foci of both the Anglo-Australian and William Herschel Telescopes, with an adjustable passband of between 6 and 60 Å. In addition, frequency switching with the TTF can be synchronised with movement of charge (charge shuffling) on the CCD, which has important applications to many astrophysical problems. Here we review the different modes of TTF and suggest their use for follow-up narrowband imaging to the AAO/UKST Galactic Plane Hα Survey.

Observational and theoretical evidence points to the existence of an unusually high magnetic field on GX 1+4. The pulsar is thus an ideal laboratory for studying two-photon cyclotron emission, an important source of photons of frequency significantly less than the cyclotron frequency in X-ray pulsars. Low-frequency approximations to the two-photon cyclotron emission transition probabilities are derived. These are used to calculate the theoretical opening angle of the double-humped pulse shape predicted by the two-photon cyclotron emission model. The theoretical pulse shape, incorporating the effects of gravitational light bending, is compared with observations of GX 1+4. Observed light curves have opening angles consistent with the theoretically predicted maximum value.

Line broadening cross sections for the broadening of spectral lines by collisions with neutral hydrogen atoms have been tabulated by Anstee & O'Mara (1995), Barklem & O'Mara (1997) and Barklem, O'Mara & Ross (1998) for s–p, p–s, p–d, d–p, d–f and f–d transitions. To make these data more accessible to the end user, fortran code which interpolates in these tabulations has been prepared and placed on the World Wide Web. It should be easy to incorporate this code into existing spectrum synthesis programs or to use it in a stand-alone mode to compute line broadening cross sections for specific transitions. The use of the code is demonstrated by its application to two transitions of astrophysical interest.

We present simulated AXAF spectra of accreting white dwarfs, using parameters appropriate for magnetic cataclysmic variables. The very high spectral resolution that can be obtained with the High-Energy Transmission Grating of AXAF can resolve the keV X-ray emission lines that characterise the temperature, density and velocity profiles of the shock-heated emission regions of these systems. These simulations demonstrate that actual spectra will allow us to place constraints on the white-dwarf mass and the accretion rate of the systems. The high-resolution spectra also allow the measurement of the velocity of the accretion flow in regions close to the white-dwarf surface.

Prospects for comparisons between the AAO/UKST Hα survey and large-scale radio continuum emission are considered, with particular reference to the recently completed Parkes 2·4 GHz survey of the southern Galactic Plane. Both these surveys have a high sensitivity to thermal emission, and comparisons between the Parkes work and previous Hα surveys show many objects in common. Possibilities for new detections include: a number of new supernova remnants; the faint extensions and envelopes surrounding ‘classical’ HII complexes, and other faint regions of thermal emission; several active HII complexes, including an outflow of ionised gas from IC 4628 and a number of bi-polar ‘plumes’ of low-density, thermal material apparently associated with HII complexes on the Carina spiral arm.

It is shown that for moderately hot polar caps (with effective temperature of ∼106 K), the efficiency of polar gap acceleration is lower compared to the case in which the polar caps are relatively cool and inverse Compton scattering plays no role in controlling the gap. For young pulsars with superstrong magnetic fields (≥109 T) and hot polar caps (with temperature of ≥5 × 106 K), because of the energy loss of electrons or positrons due to resonant inverse Compton scattering in the vicinity of polar caps, pair cascades occur at distances further away from the polar cap, and in this case we have a relatively high acceleration efficiency, with ions carrying most of the particle luminosity.

We describe the specifications, characteristics, calibration, and analysis of data from the University of New South Wales Infrared Fabry–Perot (UNSWIRF) etalon. UNSWIRF is a near-infrared tunable imaging spectrometer, used primarily in conjunction with IRIS on the AAT, but suitable for use as a visitor instrument at other telescopes. The etalon delivers a resolving power in excess of 4000 (corresponding to a velocity resolution ∼75 km s−1), and allows imaging of fields up to 100″ in diameter on the AAT at any wavelength between 1·5 and 2·4 μm for which suitable blocking filters are available.

The Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) is carrying out a survey as part of an international collaboration to image the northe, at a common resolution, in emission from all major constituents of the interstellar medium; the neutral atomic gas, the molecular gas, the ionised gas, dust and relativistic plasma. For many of these constituents the angular resolution of the images (1 arcmin) will be more than a factor of 10 better than any previous studies. The aim is to produce a publicly-available database of high resolution, high-dynamic range images of the Galaxy for multi-phase studies of the physical states and processes in the interstellar medium. We will sketch the main scientific motivations as well as describe some preliminary results from the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey/Releve Canadien du Plan Galactique (CGPS/RCPG).

X-ray binaries in which the accreting component is a neutron star commonly exhibit significant changes in their spin. In the system Cen X-3, a disk accreting binary system, the pulsar was observed to spin up at a rate ḟ = 8 × 10−13 Hz s−1 when averaged over the past twenty years, but significant fluctuations were observed above this mean. Recent BASTE observations have disclosed that these fluctuations are much larger than previously noted, and appeared to be a system characteristic. The change in the spin state from spin-up to spin-down or vice-versa occurs on a time scale that is much shorter than the instrument can resolve (≤1 d), but appears always to be a similar amplitude, and to occur stochastically. These observations have posed a problem for the conventional torque–mass accretion relation for accreting pulsars, because in this model the spin rate is closely related to the accretion rate, and the latter needs to be finely tuned and to change abruptly to explain the observations. Here we review recent work in this direction and present a coherent picture that explains these observations. We also draw attention to some outstanding problems for future studies.

This project aims to tackle a few unresolved problems related to the interstellar medium (ISM) by acting as an optical counterpart to the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS). We have three main objectives: (1) the study of large/old HII regions; (2) observations of targets-of-opportunity that may be found by the CGPS; (3) comparison of the kinematics of extragalactic (M33) and galactic HII regions. (1) Old HII regions having large spatial extents will be observed to establish their kinematical structure when almost no molecular material is left to produce photodissociated flows. Does turbulence play a role in these objects as for younger nebulae? (2) Ionised nebulae observed by the CGPS that are peculiar, either morphologically or by special association with neutral hydrogen, will also be observed. (3) The kinematical behaviour of old HII regions in M33 will be compared with that of galactic HII regions. With both data sets in hand we will check if HII regions, like supernovae, dump energy into the neutral ISM. The instrument used as well as some very preliminary data are presented.

Radio continuum emission due to thermal bremsstrahlung and optical Hα spectral line emission arise from processes involving similar atomic entities and physical conditions. The relationship between the flux density of the emission from the two processes is mainly a function of the electron temperature of the emitting region, modified by other factors such as the mode of radiation transfer in the hydrogen spectrum. On the other hand, radio continuum radiation due to non-thermal synchrotron emission is formed by species and processes not involved in thermal emission. As a consequence, differences between the observed radio continuum emission and Hα emission from cosmic sources can provide reliable information on a variety of important physical aspects of the sources, including the relative importance of thermal and non-thermal radio emission and the degree of optical obscuration. This paper reviews the theory of the formation of Hα and the radio continuum in the interstellar medium (ISM), discusses some of the factors that must be considered in comparing observations made in the two frequency regimes, and summarises the properties of some classes of galactic object that emit both optical and radio radiation.