" J Winter Solstice 1975 No. 10 • ' J a • ~: . ' ...1 • • " \\'.,\.~:~\ , " , ., \ " ,\", .. '" ..... ~ .... \ ' \ '. I Canadian A's.tronomical ,S_OC,.....· ~~u..:.I ; " "' " '' • u ' ¢ ~ Societe Canadienne d'Astronomie;'\ Cassiopeia ---- ---. ---- - -----------. - - ------------- --- - _ _ _ _ __ 0 No. 10 Winter Solstice Issue 1975 CANADIAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY SOCIETE CANADIENNE D'ASTRONOMIE Editor: Dr. John F. Heard, University of Toronto As soc. Editor: Dr. David L. DuPuy , st . Maryi s University 1976 June Institute The Universi ty of TorontoQs Department of Astronomy and the David Dunlap Observatory will host the 1976 June Institute on Tuesday, June 8 to Friday, June 11 , inclusive. All are cordially invited to attend . Details of the programme are not yet final , but will be announced i n the Vernal Equinox issue of CASSIOPEIA. For more information, write to Dr. John R. Percy, Department of Astronomy, University of Toronto, Toronto , Ontario M5S lA7 0 t h DEADLINE for the Vernal Equinox i ssue of CASSIOPEIA is March 10 , Please send material to David L, DuPuy, Department of Astronomy, Saint MaryQ s University, Halifax, Nova Scoti a B3H 3C3. 2 NOTES FROM UNIVERSITIES UNIVERSITY OF TORON TO Vis i tors to the Observatory Visi t ors who have recently given colloquia on Camp u s o r a t th e Observatory are: Pierre Demarq ue of Yale on "Carbon Abund a nces in Horizo n tal Branch Stars". Amos Ya hil of Princet o n on "Bi g Bang Nucleosynthesis". Sandra Fabe r of Lick on "Elliptical Galaxies: Velocity Dispersions , In tern a l Dynam i cs, Gas Content". Gust av Tamma n, Hal e Ob s ., "Distances of Galaxie s in the Loca l Supercl uster". Donald Morton of Princeton on "M ass Loss from Stars". David Strangway, Geo l ogy, U. of T., o n "A Model for Lunar Evolution". Rog e r Bell, U. of Md ., "The Chemical Composition of Globula r Cluster Stars". Robert Kraft of Lic k on "The Origin and Evol ution of RR Lyra e Stars of Hig h Metal Ab undance ". Staff and Student Note s Phil ipp Kr on berg , on sabbatical l eave a t Bonn thi s session, paid a flying vi sit t o Toronto and to Green Bank in mid - November . He is enjoyin g his work at Bon n a nd hi s wife and child r e n a re rap i d ly learning German (in whic h Phil ipp is fluent) . Radio and TV h ave been calling on us a goo d deal this past a ut umn. For a series entitled "Ideas" o n CBC fm John Lomberg, a To ron to a rti st and ga laxy "fre ak " conceived and wrote an eight -week seri es e ntitled "Into the Unive rs e"; Tom Bolton , Bob Garrison and Sidney van den Bergh took part. Bob Ga rrison app eared t wice on Global TV and on Ontario Educati o nal TV du r i n g October a nd had weekly talk s wit h Jud y La Marsh on her CBC morn i n g rad io sh ow during November and December . Rene Ra cine has been a re gu l a r gues t every ot her Frid ay morning a t 8:3 0 on CJBC (French language radio) , s peaking for 5 to 7 minutes on "Chronique d' Astronomie". This has been going on fo r about tw o years . Next tra nsm issions J a n . 2 , Jan . 16 . J Don MacRae was at DAD Dec . 13-14 , alo n g with othe r members of th e CF HT Boa rd, inspect i n g th e present state of th e 142 -inch blank . Then they went to th e Institute of As tronomy, Uni versity of Hawaii for Board and Committee meet in gs Dec. 1 5 -1 8, and on Dec. 19 they asce nded Ma un a Kea t o see the construction which has taken place there over th e past year an d a half. Bob McLaren who has rec e ntl y been appointed to th e teac h ing staff in Astro n omy (joint l y with Physics) h as now taken up his duties. Bob's speci a lty has been infrared astronomy. Re n ~ Racine recentl y visited t he University of Regina as a memb er of a n ad hoc adviso r y commi tt ee to th e Faculty of Graduate St u dies a nd Researc h and also visited The University of Montreal fo r discussions of their observatory project. Helen Hogg a ttended the AAVS O Annual meeting Oct. 17 -19 at Co n cord Mas s ., a nd was a gues t of President Car l Williams of UWO for luncheon on Nov. lIon the occasion of the ope nin g th e re of th e Exhibit of the work of 19 Ca n adian Women Scientists. During the week of Oct. 22-29, Bob Garrison was in France attending a CFHT Spectrograph Working Group meetin g at Haute Proven ce , a nd Ren~ Racine a l so visited Haute Provence and attende d a Scientific Advisory Co mmittee Meeting o f CFHT a t Meudon. S i dney van de n Be rgh spoke on "Galaxy Evolution a n d Classification" at Rice Un iversity , Hous t on on Sept . 25, a t th e New York Astronomical Societ y meeti n g in Alban y on Nov. 1, t o the M. I. T. Ce n tre for Space Science on Nov . 1 8 and to the Yale Astronomy Depar tment on Nov . 20. He observed variable s t ars i n nearb y galaxies and supernovae remnant s with the 48-inch Schmidt tel escop e at Palomar on Nov. 2-9. At that time h e observed tha t (his) cornet 1974g was about t wo magnitudes bright er th a n pr edic t ed , at B ~ 17 . Torn Bo lton a ttended t he Goddard Symposi um on X- Ray Binaries at the Goddard Space Centre in Greenbe lt, Md. Oct . 20-22, chairing a session o n Cy gnus X-I and g iving two papers. Bob Garrison was in Chicago for th e A.A . S. meeting Dec . 8-10 and then went to Las Campanas for an observing session until Jan . 6 . Others a tt e nding the A.A.S . meeting were Sidney vdB , Christine a nd Ma uri ce Clement and Ernie Seaq u ist . Receivin g de grees i n astronomy at the fall Convo cation were Ted Bednarek and Chris Pritche t (Ph. D.). and Richard Gr ay ) Martine Normandin a nd Gilles M~nard (M . Sc.) . Lrauuute student S t eve Shore attenueu the 1.I\ . U. Colloquium on I\p stars in Vi enna Sept. 7-12. Steve authored or co-authoreu four of the papers, presenting three of t h em himse l f. Other Canadians at t ending the Colloquium inc l uded R i l l !\' e h 1 au, C h r i s /\ i k ma n and J 0 h n Lan u s t r e e t , University of Western Ontario At the fall co"vocation Louis Fortier and Arno Krautter r eceived their M.Sc. degrees . Loui s is spendi ng a year in Europe while Arno is working for Ameli a Wehlau and Serge Demers of Lauren­ tian. The department has rented the i ce in the university's neW arena for a weekly hockey game, hel d each Thursday morning. The two teams are made up impartially from a selection of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. Black eyes and sore muscles have also been distributed impartia lly. Mike Marlborough presented a review paper on "Model s for the Circumstellar Envelopes of Be Stars" at I AU Sympo s ium No. 70 , "The Merrill-McLaughlin Symposium on Be and Shell Stars", held a t Cape Cod , l'1assachusetts, September 15-19. Graduate students Henry Lepar­ skas, Roland Poeckert and Ian Thompson a lso attended; Roland presented a paper on "Intrinsi c Linear ? olarization of Be Stars as a Function of V sin i." Bill Wehlau attended a series of CFHT meetings in Pa ris and at Haute Provence Observatory during the las t two weeks of October, as well as a meeting of the CFHT board in Hawaii in mid-December. Dave Gray gave a colloquium at the University of Texas entitled "Turbulence Measurements and Other Interesting Applications of Li ne Profiles." He was also in Texas to use the 107-inch telescope , collecting data pertaining to turbulence in the s olar photosphere . Saint MaryUs University The Depar tment of Astr onomy has an opening for a post-doctoral fellow, to begin March 1 , 1976, or earlier. For details, contact the CAS/SCA Employment Committee, or the University. RLSLAR C' H NL (US Th e IlDO Ilicrodcnsitollletcr by Tom Bo I t on !\ Ligh speed no l I er and Chi ven s PhotoTTict ric !Jut;] Syst ems llI i c r Ci­ densitometer 1,,15 install ed at t he David Dun l ap Oh servatory ill late Jul y , 1974. After an extended shakedol,·n pel·ioc!, r equirec to repa ir dama ge incurred in sh ipm ent, it hecame operation,ll in ~Iar c h, 1975. Since that tim e , it has provjded an enormous stimu l u~ to the spectrogrGphic research progTGm 5 unden'!;!), Gt \lUO. Since pu rt of the r at ionale for obtainil~g thi s machine was that it he made avai l ah l e for the usc of Canudi all astronomers in genera l, I ~ould like briefly to describe the hardh'are and soft l~arc current l y available a nd some of the cClpub ilities of the system.