Evolution of the Radio Luminosities of the Tycho and Kepler Supernovae Remnants

Radio emission of the historical supernovae remnants Tycho (SNR1572) and Kepler (SNR1604) and evolution of their luminosity are considered. Measurement data of secular luminosity decrease rate, obtained earlier by the authors, were corrected with account of variation in time of the flux density of the reference sources. As a result, it is found that the SNR1604 luminosity at 1667 MHz is weakening with an annual mean rate equal to (0.2 ± 0.07)%. The corresponding rate for SNR1572 is (0.47 ± 0.05)%. Since the radio luminosity evolution, as well as energy densities of magnetic field and relativistic electrons inside SNR1604 and SNR1572 are essentially different, these remnants should be considered as different types of supernovae. Bandiera classified SN1604 as type SNIb or SNII.     

A unique Galactic planetary nebula with a [WN] central star

We report the discovery of the first probable Galactic [WN] central star of a planetary nebula (CSPN). The planetary nebula candidate was found during our systematic scans of the AAO/UKST Hα Survey of the Milky Way. Subsequent confirmatory spectroscopy of the nebula and central star reveals the remarkable nature of this object. The nebular spectrum shows emission lines with large expansion velocities exceeding 150 km s⁻¹, suggesting that perhaps the object is not a conventional planetary nebula. The central star itself is very red and is identified as being of the [WN] class, which makes it unique in the Galaxy. A large body of supplementary observational data supports the hypothesis that this object is indeed a planetary nebula and not a Population I Wolf–Rayet star with a ring nebula.     

Palomar Testbed Interferometer Observations of Young Stellar Objects

We present observations of a sample of Herbig AeBe stars, as well as the FU Orionis object V1057 Cygni. Our K-band (2.2μm) observations from the Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI) used baselines of 110 m and 85 m, resulting in fringe spacings of ∼4 mas and 5 mas, respectively. Fringes were obtained for the first time on V1057 Cygnias well as V594 Cas. Additional measurements were made of MWC147, while upper limits to visibility-squared are obtained for MWC297, HD190073, and MWC614. These measurements are sensitive to the distribution of warm, circumstellar dust in these sources. If the circumstellar infrared emission comes from warm dust in a disk, the inclination of the disk to the line of sight implies that the observed interferometric visibilities should depend upon hour angle. Surprisingly, the observations of Millan-Gabet, Schloerb and Traub (2001)(hereafter MST) did not show significant variation with hour angle. However, limited sampling of angular frequencies on the sky was possible with the IOTA interferometer, motivating us to study a subset of their objects to further constrain these systems. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

VLA and MERLIN observations of RZ Cassiopeiae

We present radio interferometric observations of the Algol-type binary system RZ Cassiopeiae made with the VLA and MERLIN arrays at 6 cm over an incomplete orbital cycle of the system (1.195 d). We detected RZ Cas with both instruments. The images were unresolved in both cases, with angular extents comparable to the synthesized beams. The peak flux density in the VLA image was 1.14 mJy beam⁻¹ and in the MERLIN image it was 0.93 mJy beam⁻¹. The derived brightness temperatures are  4.02 × 10⁸  and  4.35 × 10⁸ K  and the effective electron energies are 0.347 and 0.346 MeV for the MERLIN and VLA data respectively. The radio light curve shows an interesting modulation centred close to the primary eclipse which seems to correlate with ASCA SIS observations of the system. The results can be interpreted as an emitting region on the outer hemisphere of the cool component aligned along the centroid axis of the binary system.