The main objectives of this series of papers are: (1) to demonstrate the existence of serious mutual disagreements between established total (and other integrated) magnitude scales forVirgo galaxies; (2) to attempt to quantify both the systematic and random errors present within these magnitude scales; (3) to investigate the origins of any large error uncovered; and thereby (4) to encourage the general adoption of rigorous total-magnitude measurement procedures by the astronomical community. The ramifications of the findings presented in this series of papers will be discussed in detail at a later date.

In this paper, the first in the series, a self-consistent dataset of trustworthy total-magnitude measurements is compiled for a sample of Virgo galaxies spanning a range of 10 000 in apparent brightness, based on only the most reliable measurements and photometry currently available. This reference dataset, which includes luminosity profile shape information, will be used in subsequent papers as one of the bases for assessing existing magnitude scales forVirgo galaxies. As most published magnitudes are based on B–band observations, this series of papers will also focus primarily on B–bnd measurements.

There are many reasons why it is important to increase the number of known pulsars. Not only do pulsar searches continue to improve statistical estimates of, for example, pulsar birthrates, lifetimes and the Galactic distribution, but they continue to turn up interesting and, in some cases, unique individual pulsars. In the early days of pulsar astronomy, the Molonglo radio telescope led the world as a pulsar detection instrument. However, the Parkes radio telescope, with its frequency versatility and greater tracking ablility, combined with sensitive receivers and powerful computer detection algorithms, is now the world’s most successful telescope at finding pulsars. The Parkes multibeam survey, begun in 1997, by itself will come close to doubling the number of known pulsars. Parkes has also been very successful at finding millisecond pulsars (MSPs), especially in globular clusters. One third of the known MSPs have been found in just one cluster, 47 Tucanae.

The effect of nonaxisymmetric radiation drag on relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) is discussed. The radiation force due to inverse Compton scattering of photon fields from a noncircular accretion disk is calculated. It is shown that such nonaxisymmetric drag can cause jet path distortion within the subparsec region of the black hole. This subparsec scale distortion is potentially observable with the current VLBI, VLBA techniques. Any modulation of the axially asymmetric distribution of disk emission can result in variability in electromagnetic radiation from the jet.

Australian research into variations of the cosmic ray flux arriving at the Earth has played a pivotal role for more than 50 years. The work has been largely led by the groups from the University of Tasmania and the Australian Antarctic Division, and has involved the operation of neutron monitors and muon telescopes from many sites. In this paper, the achievements of the Australian researchers are reviewed and future experiments are described. Particular highlights include: the determination of cosmic ray modulation parameters; the development of techniques for modelling ground-level enhancements; the confirmation of the Tail-In and Loss-Cone sidereal anisotropies; the Spaceship Earth collaboration; and the Solar Cycle latitude survey.

We investigate the photographic-magnitude (mp) scale of Volume I of the Catalogue of Galaxies and of Clusters of Galaxies for galaxies in the Virgo direction. It is found that for 11.5 ≤ Bt < 14.5, the mp values listed correspond very closely (with a scatter of only 0.16 magnitude) to blue magnitudes measured to the B = 24.4 isophote. If mp values need to be used as estimates of total blue magnitude the scatter is 0.27 magnitude over the same range in Bt and the mean offset is mp – Bt = 0.28 magnitude. However, a serious scale error at the bright end causes both the isophotal and total luminosities of galaxies brighter than Bt ~ 11.5 to be severely underestimated. At the faint end there also appears to be a significant scale error. This causes galaxy luminosities to be seriously overestimated faintward of Bt ~ 14.5.We demonstrate that this is a real effect based on a detailed galaxy-by-galaxy study of the catalogue’s completeness down to Bt = 17.0. The catalogue is found only to be complete to Bt ~ 14.7 whilst its degree of incompleteness is found to be relatively constant at the 30% level over the range 14.75 ≤ Bt < 15.75. Most of the missing objects are found to be elliptical galaxies and so late-type objects are over-represented at the faint end.

We measure the spectral properties of a representative sub-sample of 187 quasars, drawn from the Parkes Half-Jansky, Flat-radio-spectrum Sample (PHFS). Quasars with a wide range of rest-frame optical/UV continuum slopes are included in the analysis: their colours range over 2 < B–K < 7. We present composite spectra of red and blue sub-samples of the PHFS quasars, and tabulate their emission line properties.

The median Hβ and [O III] emission line equivalent widths of the red quasar sub-sample are a factor of ten weaker than those of the blue quasar sub-sample. No significant differences are seen between the equivalent width distributions of the C IV, C III] and Mg II lines. Both the colours and the emission line equivalent widths of the red quasars can be explained by the addition of a featureless red synchrotron continuum component to an otherwise normal blue quasar spectrum. The red synchrotron component must have a spectrum at least as red as a power-law of the form Fυ α υ−2.8. The relative strengths of the blue and red components span two orders of magnitude at rest-frame 500 nm. The blue component is weaker relative to the red component in low optical luminosity sources. This suggests that the fraction of accretion energy going into optical emission from the jet is greater in lowluminosity quasars. This correlation between colour and luminosity may be of use in cosmological distance scale work.

This synchrotron model does not, however, fit ˜10% of the quasars, which have both red colours and high equivalent width emission lines.We hypothesise that these red, strong-lined quasars have intrinsically weak Big Blue Bumps.

There is no discontinuity in spectral properties between the BL Lac objects in our sample and the other quasars. BL Lac objects appear to be the red, low equivalent width tail of a continuous distribution. The synchrotron emission component only dominates the spectrum at longer wavelengths, so existing BL Lac surveys will be biased against high redshift objects. This will affect measurements of BL Lac evolution.

The blue PHFS quasars have significantly higher equivalent width C IV, Hβ and [O III] emission than a matched sample of optically selected QSOs.

Solar flares are thought to be caused by reconnection of magnetic fields and their associated electric currents in the solar corona. The currents have to be there to provide available energy over and above the current-free minimum energy state, but what generates them has been little discussed. This paper investigates the idea that twisting motions in the turbulent convection zone below may provide a natural source for the currents and explain some of their properties. The twists generate upward-propagating Alfvén waves with a Poynting flux of the right order of magnitude to power a flare. Depending on the depth it takes place, the twisting event that initiates a particular flare may occur hours, days or even months before the flare itself.

We present deep ATCA radio images of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae made at 1.4 and 1.7 GHz and identify 9 compact sources in the cluster core with 11 pulsars. At present there are several pulsars for which pulse timing analyses have not yet yielded precise positions. We examine other sources in the image, and on the basis of their spectral index find two that would possibly correspond to the pulsars with undetermined positions.

The Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (NIFS) will beAustralia’s first Gemini instrument. NIFS is a near-infrared, imaging spectrograph that will be used with the ALTAIR facility adaptive optics system on Gemini North to perform near-diffraction-limited imaging spectroscopy over a 3·0″ × 3·0″ field of view with 0·1″ wide slitlets and a spectral resolving power of ˜5300. NIFS will operate in the wavelength range from 0·94–2·50 µm where ALTAIR delivers its greatest gains. Its primary purpose is to study moderate-surface-brightness structures around discrete objects that are revealed at high spatial resolution by ALTAIR. NIFS will address a wide range of science from studies of Galactic star formation and the Galactic centre to the nature of disk galaxies at z ˜ 1. Studies of the demographics of massive black holes in galactic nuclei and studies of the excitation conditions in the inner narrow-line regions of Seyfert galaxies have been identified as two core NIFS programs. These and other science drivers for NIFS are discussed.

As a pilot survey for the forthcoming 6dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, spectroscopy of galaxies selected in the 1.2 micron J waveband with the DENIS imaging survey was performed at the UKST using the FLAIR II multi-object spectroscope. Sixty-nine galaxy redshifts were obtained in a high galactic latitude field and an additional 12 redshifts in a low galactic latitude (b = 17˚), obscured field. This spectroscopic followup of NIR selected galaxies illustrates the feasibility of obtaining redshifts with optical spectra on galaxies selected at much longer wavelengths. It validated a very preliminary algorithm for star/galaxy separation for high galactic latitude DENIS objects, with 99% reliability for J <13.9. The FLAIR II redshifts are in excellent agreement with those, previously published, of 20 common galaxies. However, the FLAIR II redshift determinations presented here required substantially longer integration times to achieve 90% completeness than expected from previous optical surveys at comparable depth. This is mainly due to a degradation in overall fibre throughput due to known problems with ageing of the prism–cement–fibre interface with exposure to UV light. In comparison to our high galactic latitude field, our low latitude (high extinction) field required 2.5 times more exposure time for less than 50% of successful redshift measurements.

Among the J ≤ 13.9 galaxies with measured redshifts, only 376% display emission lines, in comparison with 60% of emission line galaxies in optical samples of comparable depth. These galaxies are, on average, half a magnitude bluer in B-J than galaxies of the same luminosity without emission lines. We confirm a previous optically-based result that the fraction of galaxies with emission lines increases rapidly with decreasing galaxy luminosity. The J band luminosity function is estimated. Our high latitude field displays a concentration of galaxies at cz ≲ 38 000 km s−1 suggesting a possible supercluster.A radial velocity is reported for a galaxy lying near the projected centre of the Abell 1434 cluster of galaxies, for which no cluster redshift is currently available.

The surface of the Sun is continually oscillating due to sound waves encroaching on it from the interior. Measurements of the surface velocity are used to infer some of the properties of the regions through which the sound waves have propagated. Traditionally, this has been done by using a modal decomposition of the surface disturbances. However, the use of ray descriptions, in the form of acoustic holography or time–distance helioseismology, provides an alternative approach which may reveal more detailed information about the properties of local phenomena such as sunspots and active regions. Fundamental to any such treatment is determining the correct ray paths in a given atmosphere. In the simplest approach, the ray paths are constructed to minimise the travel time between two points (Fermat's principle). However, such an approach is only valid in the high frequency limit, ω » ωc, N, where ωc is the acoustic cut-off and N the Brunt-VÄisÄlÄ frequency. Although ωc is often included in time– distance calculations, and N occasionally, the same is not true of acoustic holography. We argue that this raises concerns about image sharpness. As illustrations, representative ray paths are integrated in a realistic solar model to show that the Fermat approximation performs poorly for frequencies of helioseismic interest. We also briefly discuss the importance of the Brunt-VÄisÄlÄ frequency to the time–distance diagram.

Lower hybrid (LH) drive involves the resonant acceleration of electrons parallel to the magnetic field by lower hybrid waves, often driven by ions with ring or ring-beam distributions. Charge-exchange between hydrogen atoms and protons with relative motions perpendicular to the magnetic field leads to ring distributions of pickup ions, with concomitant perpedicular ion ‘heating’. This paper considers the combination of LH drive and charge-exchange in the outflow regions of magnetic reconnection sites in the solar chromosphere and lower corona, showing that the combined mechanism naturally predicts major perpendicular ion heating and parallel electron acceleration, and exploring the mechanism’s relevance to specific solar reconnection phenomena, heating of the solar atmosphere, and production of energetic electrons that generate solar radio emission. Although primarily qualitative, analysis shows that the mechanism has numerous attractive aspects, including perpendicular ion heating that increases linearly with ion mass, parallel electron acceleration, predicted ion and electron temperatures that span those of the chromosphere and lower corona, and parallel electron speeds spanning those for type III bursts. Applications to chromospheric explosive events and low-lying active regions, and to heating the chromosphere, appear particularly suitable. Sweeping of plasma frozen-in to chromospheric and coronal magnetic field lines across the neutral atmosphere due to motions of sub-photospheric fields represents an obvious and important generalisation of the mechanism away from reconnection sites. The requirements that the neutrals not be strongly collisionally coupled to the plasma and that sufficient neutrals are available for charge-exchange restricts the LH drive mechanism to above the photosphere but below where the corona is essentially fully ionised. LH drive may thus be important in heating the chromosphere and low corona while other heating mechanisms dominate at higher altitudes. Although attractive thus far, quantitative analyses of LH drive in these contexts are necessary before definitive conclusions are reached.

Beneath the familiar surface of the Orion Nebula is a spectacular molecular hydrogen outflow from a young stellar object, of very unusual morphology. In this paper I briefly discuss this outflow, its possible origins, and its interaction with the Nebula.

The Algol type eclipsing binary KZ Pav has been observed over one complete orbit (0.95 days) with theAustraliaTelescope CompactArray. Contemporaneous optical photometric data from the University of Southern Queensland’s Observatory at Mount Kent were also collected and have been included in this multi-wavelength study.

Preliminary indications are that the low levels of emission observed share similarities to those of some RS CVn binaries. The optical data show phase-linked effects which can be related to the mass transfer process of Algols. The possibility that the radio emission may be related to this process is considered.

Cosmic ray arrival directions at energies a little over 1018 eV have been reported to show an excess from directions close to that of the Galactic centre. That result was originally presented by the AGASA group and was later strengthened by an analysis of SUGAR cosmic ray data. We discuss here a second feature of the AGASA data, a deficit in roughly the Galactic anticentre direction.We interpret this as a result of cosmic ray diffusion past us. We find that the most straightforward interpretation of the data then requires that a strong magnetic field exists out of the plane of our Galaxy to distances of at least several kiloparsecs.

Although the extra-solar planets discovered so far are of the giant, gaseous type, the increased sensitivity of future surveys will result in the discovery of lower mass planets. The detection of O2 in the atmosphere of a rocky extra-solar planet would be a potential indicator of life. In this paper we address the specific issue of whether we would be able to detect the O2 A-band absorption feature in the atmosphere of a planet similar to the Earth, if it were in orbit around a nearby star. Our method is empirical, in that we use observations of the Earth's O2 A-band, with a simple geometric modification for a transiting extra-solar planet, allowing for limb-darkening of the host star. We simulate the spectrum of the host star with the superposed O2 A-band absorption of the transiting planet, assuming a spectral resolution of ~8 kms−1(typical of current echelle spectrographs), for a range of spectral signal-to-noise ratios. The main result is that in principle we may be able to detect the O2 A-band of the transiting planet for host stars with radii R≤ 0.3Rʘ. However, using existing instrumentation and 8m telescopes, this requires target M-stars with m(V) ≈ 10 or brighter for integration times of ~10 hours or less. The number of such stars over the sky is small. Larger aperture telescopes and/or improved instrumentation efficiency would enable surveys of M-stars down to m(V) ≈ 13 and greatly improve the chances of discovering life elsewhere.

In this paper, we give arguments that there are two types of coronal mass ejection (CME).The first type of CME discussed here is the ‘loop-type’, whose occurrence is related to an arcade flare somewhere between the footpoints. It was found that there were pre-event magnetic connections between the flare location and the locations of the footpoints of a CME of this type, and that these connections disappeared after the event. This suggests that the footpoints of loop-type CMEs are special prescribed points, and this was verified by the observation that the footpoints do not move in this type of CME.

The other type of CME is the ‘bubble-type’, which is associated with the flare blast from explosive flares. We confirmed the association of this type of CME with the so-called EIT (Extreme Ultra-violet Imaging Telescope) waves, but the velocity of expansion of the bubble is twice or more greater than that of the EIT waves depending on events. Although EIT waves were widely considered to be Moreton waves viewed by SoHO/EIT in the solar activity minimum period, recent simultaneous observations of both have revealed that the EIT wave is something different from the Moreton wave, and propagates separately with a velocity less than half that of a Moreton wave.We therefore propose a new overall picture: the bubble-type CMEs are the flare-produced MHD blast waves themselves, whose skirt is identified as a Moreton wave. EIT waves may be interpreted as follows: the slow-mode gas motions from the source cause secondary longwavelength fast-mode waves which are trapped in the “waveguide” in the low corona. The secondary long-wavelength wave in the fast-mode, which is trapped in the low corona, has a slower propagation velocity due to the nature of the waves trapped in a “waveguide”. This trapped wave induces slow-mode motions of the gas through a mode-coupling process in the high chromosphere, where the propagation velocities of the fastand slow-mode waves match.

Three-dimensional MHD simulations for these two types of CME are in progress, and are previewed in this paper.

Francis & Hewett (1993) identified two 10 Mpc-scale regions of the high-redshift universe that were seemingly very overdense in neutral hydrogen. Subsequent observations showed that at least one of these gas-rich regions enveloped a cluster of galaxies at redshift 2 ·38. We present improved observations of the three background QSOs with sightlines passing within a few Mpc of this cluster of galaxies. All three QSOs show strong neutral hydrogen absorption at the cluster redshift, suggesting that this cluster (and perhaps all high-redshift clusters) may be surrounded by a ~5 Mpc-scale region containing ~10 12 Mʘ of neutral gas. We show that if most high-redshift clusters are surrounded by such regions, the gas must be in the form of many small (<1 kpc), dense (> 0·03 cm ˗3 ) clouds, each of mass <10 6 Mʘ . These clouds are themselves probably gathered into >20 kpc-sized clumps, which may be galaxy halos or protogalaxies. If this gas exists, it will be partially photoionised by the UV background. We predict the diffuse Lyα flux from this photoionisation, and place observational limits on its intensity.