By 1950 the C.S.I.R.O’s Division of Radiophysics was emerging as a leader in solar radio astronomy. Early observations at radio frequencies were hampered by a lack of angular resolution. In seeking a method to produce regular high-resolution observations W.N. Christiansen devised the solar grating array. This unique instrument was constructed on the banks of the Potts Hill water supply reservoi...

Despite centuries of close association, statistics and astronomy are surprisingly distant today. Most observational astronomical research relies on an inadequate toolbox of methodological tools. Yet the needs are substantial: astronomy encounters sophisticated problems involving sampling theory, survival analysis, multivariate classification and analysis, time series analysis, wavelet analysis,...

This study examines the use, adaptation, modification and omission of astronomical calendrical elements in early Japanese Mikky? (ninth century) large part from perspective exact sciences. Shingon Tendai inherited a Sinicized system Indian astrology their respective beginnings, but significance this fact religions is underrecognized despite reality that was both studied technically required Mik...

1 Also at Lowell Observatory, 1400 West Mars Hill Road, Flagstaff, AZ 86001-4499. 2 Also at Department of Physics, MIT, and guest observer, Cerro Tololo InterAmerican Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatories, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. 3 Now at Southwest Research Inst...

The era of gravitational astronomy is nearly here. In the next few years, ground-based laser gravitational wave detectors will begin to come on line and, it is hoped, space-based detectors will soon follow. Even if the ground-based detectors do not succeed in detecting the waves within the next decade, the space-based detectors will certainly be able to, so the physics goal of the detection of ...

High Energy Astrophysics (HEA) is a modern interdisciplinary research field at the interface of astronomy, physics and cosmology, with the major objective to study extraterrestrial phenomena in their most energetic and extreme forms. HEA addresses a diversity of observational and theoretical topics related to the nonthermal Universe acceleration, propagation and radiation of relativistic partic...

I discuss the influence of society on astronomical discovery, concentrating on the last half century, during which astronomy evolved into a ‘big science’. Astronomy is observationally driven. The observational facilities needed to make paradigm-changing discoveries have become so sophisticated and expensive that only funding on a global scale is sufficient to enable their construction and opera...

I shall outline the basic principles and some observational aspects of weak gravitational lensing, and discuss several applications of this powerful tool in observational cosmology. It will be explained why the applications have been restricted to optical observations up to now, and why SKA is going to change this. I conclude with a few general remarks on a comparison between SKA and the NGST, ...

The development and operation of observational techniques with high angular resolution in optical astronomy need increasingly precise knowledge of the optical turbulence in the atmosphere. In this paper I review the observational methods for the study of optical turbulence that have been used until now. Two kinds of methods can be distinguished. The techniques that measure the vertical distribu...