Astronomical observation: observatories, equipment and methods

Infrared Solar Physics contains the proceedings of the 154th Symposium of the International Astronomical Union held in Tucson, Arizona, March 2--5, 1992.

In the last few years great improvements in the study of stellar jets and bipolar outflows have been achieved, both observationally and theoretically.

Fans of "e;Asterix the Gallic"e; know well that the only fear of people in Brittany is that the sky falls upon their head.

In July 1992, over 300 astronomers attended the Third Tetons Summer School on the subject of `The Environment and Evolution of Galaxies'.

In this review talk, I would like to report on the proper motion analysis, which has been recently carried out together with M.

The numerous applications of optimal control theory have given an incentive to the development of approximate techniques aimed at the construction of control laws and the optimization of dynamical systems.

Cosmic electrodynamics is the specific branch of plasma physics which studies electromagnetic phenomena -- mostly the role of electromagnetic forces in dynamics of highly-conducting compressible medium in the solar interior and atmosphere, solar wind, in the Earth's magnetosphere and magnetospheres of other planets as well as pulsars and other astrophysical objects.

Long-term monitoring is of fundamental significance in solving many important problems in astrophysics and, furthermore, has unequalled value in extending observational runs with small telescopes for the education of young astronomers in order to teach them how to secure high-quality observational data over many years.

THE MEETING The IAU Symposium 160 ASTEROIDS COMETS METEORS 1999 has been held at Villa Carlotta in Belgirate, on the shore of Lago Maggiore (Italy), from June 14 to June 18, 1993.

Prof.

IAU Transactions are published as a volume corresponding to each General Assembly.

Massive stars occupy an exceptional place in general astrophysics.

The nonlinear theory of oscillating systems brings new aspects into the study of variable stars.

In recent years there has been a steadily increasing cross-fertilization between cosmology and particle physics, on both the theoretical and experimental levels.

In this Symposium, researchers specializing in pulsation, rotation, magnetic fields and stellar winds are brought together for the first time in order to broaden our understanding of O and B stars.

The NATO Advanced Study Institute "e;Cosmological Aspects of X-Ray Clus- ters of Galaxies"e; took place in Vel en , Westphalia, Germany, from June 6 to June 18, 1993.

This History has its origin in a suggestion, made in September 1990 by former IAU General Secretary Derek McNally, who felt "e;that a 75 year history of the Union was needed before the col- lective memory of those who knew the Union before the Second World War vanished.

The IAU Colloquium No.

Outstanding progress in near-infrared detection technology and in real-time image processing has led astronomers to start undertaking all-sky surveys in the 1--2 mum range (project DENIS in Europe and 2MASS in the U.

Magnetism is one of the basic properties of matter.

The area of diffuse astrophysical media is enormous and ranges over circum- stellar to extragalactic scales.

In the early summer of '89 a very informal meeting on the bulge of our Galaxy was held in Leiden.

The 1990s are proving to be a very exciting p&iod for high angular resolution astronomy.

Accretion disks in astrophysics represent the characteristic flow by which compact bodies accrete mass from their environment.

Our Galactic center's proximity allows astronomers to study physical pro- cesses within galactic nuclei at a level of detail that will never be possible in the more distant, but usually also more spectacular, extragalactic systems.

An almost complete collection of the papers given at the International Workshop on Imaging in High Energy Astronomy (Anacapri, Italy, 1994).

This special issue of the international journal of cosmic physics, Astrophysics and Space Science, contains invited contributions delivered at the Second IEEE International Workshop on Plasma Astrophysics and Cosmology, held from 10 to 12 May 1993 in Princeton, New Jersey.

The ability of storing, managing, and giving access to the huge quantity of data collected by astronomical observatories is one of the major challenges of modern astronomy.

IAU Symposium No.

The mystery of the diffuse interstellar bands has been variously a curiosity, a co- nundrum, and a nuisance for astronomers in the seven decades since the features were first noticed, but recently they have become a forefront issue in astrophysics.

A revolution similar to that brought by CCDs to visible astronomy is still ahead in IR and submillimeter astronomy.

Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) are well furnished laboratories in which one can investigate a number of important physical processes.

This specialized workshop was conceived during the workshop on "e;Non- isotropic and Variable Outflows from Stars"e;, which was held at the Space Telescope Science Institute in October, 1991.

Freja is a joint Swedish and German satellite, launched on October 6, 1992 and orbiting at 600--1750 km, covering the lower part of the auroral acceleration region.

In this IAU Symposium on Wolf--Rayet stars, binary aspects received ample attention, notably because of the recognition that many observations of spectral and photometric variability at all accessible wavelengths are related to colliding winds or other forms of wind interaction.

The launch in October 1990 of the joint ESA-NASA Ulysses mission marked the start of a new era in the study of the heliosphere.

The conference recorded in this volume was one of the events organised to celebrate the centenary of the (re)establishment of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, on Blackford Hill in 1884.

This book, which has been in the making for some eighteen years, would never have begun were it not for Dr.

The concept of Stellar Populations has played a fundamental role in astronomy in the last few decades.

An up-to-date presentation of the progress and current problems in the early universe, cosmic microwave background radiation, large scale structure formation, and the interplay between them.

Astrometry is on the threshold of great changes due to the fact that this decade, alone, is witnessing an improvement of stellar positions equivalent to the total improvement of the previous two centuries.

This volume consists of invited lectures and seminars presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute "e;The Gamma Ray Sky with COMPTON GRO and SIGMA"e; , which was held at the Centre de Physique Theorique of Les Houches (France) in January / February 1994.

The 15th ESLAB symposium was held at the end of June 1981 in Amsterdam with the topic being X-ray astronomy.

In this volume a thorough review is given of waves in dusty plasmas, a fascinating new domain combining plasmas and charged dust, two omnipresent ingredients of the Universe.

Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (1851-1922) of the University of Groningen was one of the foremost astronomers of his time, resulting in a leading role internationally of Dutch astronomy throughout the twentieth century.

Gaseous nebulae offer outstanding opportunities to atomic physicists, spectroscopists, plasma experts, and to observers and theoreticians alike for the study of attenuated ionized gases.

The lAU Symposium No.