scholarly journals B (2). Local Structure: Work in High Latitudes

1955 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 31-32

The potential possibilities of research in Kapteyn's Selected Areas at intermediate and high latitudes, where magnitudes and proper motions are already available, could be fully exploited if a more accurate spectral and luminosity classification would become available, especially for the later type stars. The purpose of work on faint stars in these latitudes is manifold. At the highest latitudes the improved data can serve for a new determination of the density distribution and of the force perpendicular to the galactic plane as a function of the distance z to the plane, K(z). The limiting magnitude may be set here at m = 13.0 (photographic). At intermediate latitudes one would hope to find the correlation between the density at some distance above the galactic plane with the density in the plane. Here the limit should be set at 13.5 or 14.0, so that G and K giants can be reached up to distances of 2 to 3 kparsecs from the Sun.

1966 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 93-97
Author(s):  
Richard Woolley

It is now possible to determine proper motions of high-velocity objects in such a way as to obtain with some accuracy the velocity vector relevant to the Sun. If a potential field of the Galaxy is assumed, one can compute an actual orbit. A determination of the velocity of the globular clusterωCentauri has recently been completed at Greenwich, and it is found that the orbit is strongly retrograde in the Galaxy. Similar calculations may be made, though with less certainty, in the case of RR Lyrae variable stars.


1986 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 205-211
Author(s):  
J. A. Hughes ◽  
D. K. Scott ◽  
C. A. Smith

Observations of the sun and major and minor planets made by transit circle telescopes are used to determine positions of the equinox and the celestial equator and, by repeated observing programs, the motions of these fiducial references. Long series of such absolute observations, when combined into catalogs such as the FK5, yield a fundamental coordinate system which is an observational approximation to an ideal, dynamically defined coordinate system. In such a system the equinox, for example, is defined implicitly by the right ascensions (at mean epoch) and the proper motions of the stars included in the catalog system, together with the adopted constant of precession. It may be noted that independent, highly accurate determinations of the latter quantity thus help to improve the fundamental proper motion system.


1977 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-67
Author(s):  
Richard G. Kron ◽  
Liang-Tai George Chiu ◽  
Kate O. Brooks

Several Lick 3-m prime-focus plates of Selected Areas 57, 68, and 51 (taken by I. King) in B, V, and R have been measured for stellar magnitudes down to the plate limit by L. Hinrichs and King, and are currently being measured by Chiu for proper motions (several hundred stars per plate) with the Berkeley PDS microdensitometer. Prime-focus plates are also available from the Hale 5-m and Mayall 4-m telescopes, giving an overall baseline of 20 years. Work so far indicates that on the Lick plates stars brighter then V = 19 can be measured to within one micron standard error; the error becomes unacceptably large for stars fainter than V = 20. A large number of stars bluer than B-V =0.4 show proper motion and are therefore excellent candidates for white dwarfs. For 0.4 ≤ B-V ≤ 0.8, the proper motion stars are expected to be predominantly subdwarfs.The frequency distributions of the stars in V and B-V for the three fields are being analysed by Brooks; the fields are advantageously placed for study of the density distributions in both the disk and the halo. These data should allow the halo stars to be studied out to a distance of 10 to 15 kpc, as well as a determination of the degree of flattening of the halo. Also, a study will be made of the z and ῶ density gradients in the disk, and the luminosity function of disk stars.


1982 ◽  
Vol 43 (C9) ◽  
pp. C9-43-C9-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Sadoc ◽  
A. M. Flank ◽  
D. Raoux ◽  
P. Lagarde

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (S330) ◽  
pp. 148-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edouard J. Bernard

AbstractWe took advantage of the Gaia DR1 to combine TGAS parallaxes with Tycho-2 and APASS photometry to calculate the star formation history (SFH) of the solar neighbourhood within 250 pc using the colour-magnitude diagram fitting technique. We present the determination of the completeness within this volume, and compare the resulting SFH with that calculated from the Hipparcos catalogue within 80 pc of the Sun. We also show how this technique will be applied out to ~5 kpc thanks to the next Gaia data releases, which will allow us to quantify the SFH of the thin disc, thick disc and halo in situ, rather than extrapolating based on the stars from these components that are today in the solar neighbourhood.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard

AbstractThe Sun provides a critical benchmark for the general study of stellar structure and evolution. Also, knowledge about the internal properties of the Sun is important for the understanding of solar atmospheric phenomena, including the solar magnetic cycle. Here I provide a brief overview of the theory of stellar structure and evolution, including the physical processes and parameters that are involved. This is followed by a discussion of solar evolution, extending from the birth to the latest stages. As a background for the interpretation of observations related to the solar interior I provide a rather extensive analysis of the sensitivity of solar models to the assumptions underlying their calculation. I then discuss the detailed information about the solar interior that has become available through helioseismic investigations and the detection of solar neutrinos, with further constraints provided by the observed abundances of the lightest elements. Revisions in the determination of the solar surface abundances have led to increased discrepancies, discussed in some detail, between the observational inferences and solar models. I finally briefly address the relation of the Sun to other similar stars and the prospects for asteroseismic investigations of stellar structure and evolution.


1996 ◽  
Vol 165 ◽  
pp. 263-269
Author(s):  
Simon Johnston

PSR B1259-63 is a 47-millisecond pulsar which was discovered in a high frequency survey of the galactic plane (Johnston et al. 1992a) and was subsequently found to be in a highly eccentric orbit with a main-sequence Be star known as SS 2883 (Johnston et al. 1992b). Radio observations of the pulsar led to a phase connected timing solution which predicted the epoch of periastron to be 1994 January 9 (MJD 49361.2); optical observations of the Be star led to a determination of its mass and of the size of its circumstellar disk (Johnston et al. 1994a): the star is of approximate spectral type B1e, with mass 10 M⊙ and radius 6 R⊙. If this mass is correct and the pulsar has a mass of 1.4 M⊙, then the inclination angle of the plane of the orbit with respect to the sky is 35°. This pulsar has an unusually flat radio spectrum compared to most pulsars, which makes it easily detectable up to 8.4 GHz. The narrow pulse permits dispersion and scattering measurements for studying the ionized plasma in the system. Moreover, the pulses are highly linearly polarized and permit determination of the rotation measure (RM), allowing measurements of the magnetic field along the line of sight. The 3.5-yr orbit of the pulsar around its companion thus provides us with an excellent probe of the stellar wind of the Be star over a wide frequency range.


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