The high radio positional accuracy now being achieved with long baseline interferometers, aperture-synthesis instruments and large filled-aperture telescopes makes the rapid and reliable processing of optical identifications essential. For some time now the customary approach for large surveys has been to carry out a search for possible radio-optical associations using the prints of the Palomar Sky Survey. Rough positions for optical counterparts have generally been estimated by interpolation within a small grid centred on the radio position. However, the final confirmation or rejection of the identifications has awaited spectroscopic or accurate positional data from one of the large optical telescopes, usually the 48-inch Schmidt or 200-inch reflector at Mt Palomar. It is becoming increasingly evident that not only is this process rather slow but it also means that preliminary interpretive work dealing with the identification content of a radio survey will be necessarily limited in scope.

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 effective Rayleigh number, in the solar convection zone, soon reaches a value of the order of 106 and, although considerable progress has been made in the numerical integration of the basic system of differential equations at high Rayleigh number, it is of interest to investigate more fully the application of asymptotic methods to such a problem.

Recently, Unno has proposed a new method for constructing models of convective non-grey atmospheres, making two substantial improvements to the mixing-length theory of Böhm-Vitense. His method, based on the variational technique of Glansdorff-Prigogine, enables the determination of the eddy-size and is no longer dependent on an ad hoc assumption of a constant mixing-length to scale height ratio. It also takes into account the effects of non-grey radiative transfer.

In his studies of the temperature fluctuation in the solar photosphere P. R. Wilson came to the conclusion that, in order to explain Edmond’s r.m.s. intensity fluctuation distribution against heliocentric angle, one is led, using two dimensional solutions for the equation of radiative transfer, to the existence of a sharp temperature fluctuation of about 660 K r.m.s. at a depth of 250 km below τ5000 = 0.03 and that this temperature fluctuation decreases sharply in the next 70 km. There also seems to be an indication that there exists a second temperature fluctuation maximum at a depth of approximately 100 km below the first one.

As has been previously stated (van der Borght) the lengths l1, l2, l3 and l4 are functions of and so a discussion of these lengths is in fact a discussion of the f’s. For a first approach to a determination of these f’s, a standard Vitense2 model of the convection zone—with mixing length l, is used. We assume that l = H. The variables we need are kz, which are the vertical wave number associated with the characteristic eddy, the average vertical velocity, and the average (non-dimensional) temperature fluctuation. These quantities are approximated, using the following relations

It has been often suggested that the solar granulation is essentially a turbulent convective phenomenon. It is then worthwhile to investigate steady state, finite-amplitude convection in the outer layers of the solar convection zone. On the basis that the convection zone is turbulent, we will define an eddy viscosity; and for the present we will consider only the first 300 km of the convection zone. This value is predicted by van der Borght using an asymptotic analysis of convection at high Rayleigh number—provided we assume the horizontal dimension of the cellular pattern to be ˜1000 km.

It has been suggested, for example by Wilson and Spiegel, that the results from the study of convection in incompressible fluids may provide a basis for the study of the solar convection zone. In fact Wilson’s models contain temperature fluctuation maxima, a feature exhibited by the results obtained from the convection problem for large values of the Rayleigh number.

Observations of the solar surface indicate a cellular structure, photospheric granulation, which, as suggested by Wilson and others, could arise from a shallow convection layer. The basic observed granulation pattern has been likened to a hexagonal cell type structure.

We shall examine the question of whether the concentration of magnetic field, the downward motion and the temperature excess observed at the boundaries of supergranules can be interpreted consistently in terms of a steady flow along the magnetic lines of force. Before doing so, however, we shall first consider the development of the magnetic configuration driven by a supergranular convection overshooting into the photosphere.

In this paper possible causes of line splitting in emission near the local plasma frequency are considered in connection with drift pair solar radio bursts. The basic model envisaged for the bursts involves a bunch of electrons streaming through the solar corona at several times the thermal velocity of electrons. The emission process assumed is the transformation of coherently generated electron plasma waves (I-waves) into electromagnetic waves (t-waves) with little change in frequency.

Observations on 1970 August 11 and 12 at Mauna Loa (Hawaii) of the white-light corona revealed a rare solar event in the form of a short-lived coronal brightening off the eastern limb of the Sun. The intensity of this region, as measured at a distance ρ = 1.5 (where ρ = R/R⊙), more than doubled over a period of five hours and then fell very abruptly (~10 min) to below its initial brightness. A complex radio event in the same region was observed simultaneously with the 80 MHz radioheliograph at Culgoora (Australia). Associations between the optical and radio events will be described and the physical implications briefly discussed.

In this paper we discuss 80 MHz heliograph observations of the multiple source structure and polarization of a type IV solar radio outburst on 1970 November 16. At times during the event six sources were present. Three of these were highly circularly polarized in a L.H. sense and two in a R.H. sense. The sixth source was extended and had oppositely polarized edges. From the source behaviour we conclude that the radio emission came from two expanding and one stationary magnetic arch.

A new feature in the form of a jet formed by close juxtaposition of a number of highly polarized, separately resolved 80 MHz sources was observed as the late phase of a very complex outburst on 1971 January 25. We present here a source model which, we think, can explain the observed source properties. The early phase, also complex and involving numerous moving sources, will be described first.