ESO Pictorial Atlas Now Available

Sengt Strömgren (1908-1987)

Just in time for ESO's 25th anniversary, the English, German and Danishversions of this beautiful atlas have now been published. French, Italian andSpanish versions are expected to follow in 1988.90 colour plates and 147 black­and-white photographs of outstanding quality, accompanied by extensive cap­tions, reference maps, complete plate data and indexes, introduce the reader tothe southern sky. Many of the photographs are here published for the first time.Of special interest are photographs of Supernova 1987A and of Halley's Comet.

The English version, titled "Exploring the Southern Sky", is available atSpringer-Verlag New York, P. O. Box 2485, Secaucus, New Jersey 07094, USA(US $ 39,-).

The German version, with the title "Entdeckungen am Südhimmel", may beobtained from Birkhäuser-Verlag, Postfach 113, CH-4010 Basel/Switzerland(DM 98,- until 31.12.1987, thereafter DM 128,-).

The publisher of the Danish version, "Sydhimlens Stjerner", is Rhodos, Strand­gade 36, DK-1401 Copenhagen K, Denmark (DKr. 325,-).

The book can of course also be ordered from your local bookshop.

he described in detail the classical 48constellations that had been establishedby Ptolemy in the Almagest. 4 For eachconstellation he gave a detailed discus­sion of the individual stars; a list of indi­genous Arabic star names of objectsfalling under the Greek constellation, to­gether with a precise identification ofeach object with the respectivePtolemaic stars; two drawings of theconstellation, one as seen in the sky,and one as seen on the celestial globe(where the left and right sides, and East­West, are always reversed); and acatalogue of the stars belonging to thatconstellation. Here, under the constella­tion of Andromeda, in the description ofthe indigenous Arabic names, he occa­sionally mentions the Andromeda Nebu­la. In describing the figure of a bigArabic "Fish" Iying across the figure ofPtolemy's Andromeda,s he says thatthis "Fish" is made up by two lines ofstars beginning from the "nebulousspot" (Iatkha sahabiya) which is close tothe 14th star of the constellation (v And,on the right side of the figure, being oneof the three stars ß!J.v And on the girdle,or loin cloth, of Andromeda).6

This is an occasional reference, in al­Sufi's book, to the Andromeda Nebula.The author does not give more detailsabout this object which did not form partof the material transmitted in Ptolemy'sstar catalogue; but it is evident that al­Sufi had observed the Nebula, and heused it, in context, as a point of refer­ence in the description of the position ofan old indigenous Arabic asterism.

The drawing of Andromeda with thebig Fish, added to the description of theConstellation, carefully indicates the"nebulous spot" mentioned in al-Sufi'sdescriptive text: it is marked by somedots on the mouth of the big Fish (seeFig. 1). In other manuscripts, in addition,the word sahabi ("nebulous") is writtenbeside the dots on the Fish's mouth.

In the 13th century, there originated,perhaps in Sicily, a Western branch ofthe Sufi tradition, the so-called SufiLatinus corpus, of which eight manu­scripts have been found until now.4 Itconsisted, basically, of Ptolemy's starcatalogue in the Latin version made inSpain, in the 12th century, by Gerard ofCremona (from the Arabic); but in thestar coordinates the longitudes wereconverted to al-Sufi's value (= Ptolemy+ 12°42'); further, to each constellationa drawing was added (i. e., one of thetwo drawings in al-Sufi's original work);and in some of the manuscripts in thetltle the author's name was mentionedas Ebennesophi (from the corruptedArabic Ibn al-Sufi, instead of the correctform al-Sufi). Most of the eight Latinmanuscripts have meticulously repeat­ed the dots designating the "nebulous

spot" (i.e., the Andromeda Nebula), infront of the big Fish's mouth, in thedrawing of Andromeda with the big Fish(for a specimen, see Fig. 2).

It is interesting to see how carefullythe Western copyists and draughtsmenhave reproduced those dots beside thefigure of Andromeda although theycould not understand what they meantbecause al-Sufi's descriptive text itselfhad not been translated into Latin.

References1. For the Almagest, see P. Kunitzsch, Der

Almagest. Die Syntaxis Mathematica desClaudius Ptolemäus in arabisch­lateinischer Überlieferung (Wiesbaden,1974); Claudius Ptolemäus, Der Sternka­talog des Almagest. Die arabisch-mittelal­terliche Tradition, i: Die arabischenÜbersetzungen, Herausgeg., insDeutsche übertragen u. bearb. v. P.Kunitzsch (Wiesbaden, 1986). Arecent

ALGUNOS RESUMENES

Bengt Strömgren, ex presidente dei Con­sejo de ESO (1975-1977) falleci6 el 4 de julioluego de una corta enfermedad. Su presiden­cia occurri6 en un momento particularmentedificil en la historia de la ESO. Gracias a susabiduria y la manera confiada y decisivacomo manej6 los asuntos de ESO, se pudie­ron evitar muchos riesgos y se pudo estable­cer un alto grado de armonia entre las dele­gaciones de los estados miembros, que aunperdura.

Bengt Strömgren fue un destacado cientifi­co. En el aAo 1922, a la edad de 14, public6sus primeros resultados sobre el cometaBaade 1922 c en "Astronomische Nachrich­ten" (217, p. 345). Uno de sus ultimos pre-

English translation (from the originalGreek) is: Ptolemy's Almagest, Translatedand Annotated by G.J. Toomer (London,1984).

2. Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, ed. and transl. F. E.Robbins (The Loeb Classical Library, repr.Cambridge, Mass.lLondon, 1971),p.320-321.

3. See P. Kunitzsch, apud W. Hübner, DieEigenschaften der Tierkreiszeichen in derAntike (Sudhoffs Archiv, Beiheft 22; Wies­baden, 1982), p. 358f.

4. P. Kunitzsch, article "al-Sufi", in: Dictio­nary of Scientific Biography, vol. xiii (NewYork, 1976); idem, "The astronomer AbuI-Husayn al-Sufi and his Book on the Con­stellations" , Zeitschr. f. Geschichte d.Arab.-Islam. Wissenschaften 3 (1986),56-81.

5. See P. Kunitzsch, Untersuchungen zurSternnomenklatur der Araber (Wiesbaden,1961), no. 126a.

6. H. C. F. C. Schjellerup, Description desetoiles fixes... par Abd-al-Rahman al­Sufi (St.-petersbourg, 1874; repr. Frank­furt/M., 1986), p. 118-119.

prints apareci6 tan solo pocos dias antes desu deceso. Bengt, hijo de Elis Strömgren,Director dei Observatorio de Copenhagen,obtuvo su doctorado en 1929, fue profesorde astronomia en 1938 y director en 1940.Entre los aAos 1951 - 57 fue director dei Ob­servatorio Yerkes de la Universidad de Chi­cago. Durante los siguientes diez aAos fuemiembro de la Facultad dei Instituto de Estu­dios Avanzados en Princeton. En 1967 regre­s6 a Copenhagen para ocupar la "Casa deHonor", ser profesor de astrofisica y durantevarios aAos director de NORDITA, el institutode investigaci6n comun de los cinco paisesn6rdicos. Entre los aAos 1970 hasta 1973 fuepresidente de la Uni6n Astron6mica Interna-

43

Control remoto desde Garehing

L. Woltjer: Bengt Strömgren (1908-1987) .M. Viton, O. Burgarella, A. Cassatella and L. Prevot: CPO -71°172, a New

Binary with a Hot Subdwarf 2Tentative Time-table of Council Sessions and Committee Meetings in 1987 3List of ESO Preprints. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3K. Lundgren: Luminous MS Stars in the LMC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4P. Oidelon: HO 187474: the First Results of Surface Magnetic Field Measure-

ments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5L. Colina: The Clouds which Form the Extended Emission Line Region of NGC

4388 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 10ESO Slide Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 11J.-L. Prieur: Observations of the Shell Galaxy NGC 3923 with EFOSC . . . . . . .. 12Visiting Astronomers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 14B. Jarvis: IC 3370: A Box-Shaped Elliptical or SO Galaxy? 15O. AIIoin: Upgrading of the ESO 1.52-m Telescape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 18E. Giraud: A New Oistance Indicator for Spiral Galaxies? 20K. Metz, O. Kunze, M. Roth and O. Hofstadt: A New Oevice for Performing

High-Speed Polarimetrie Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 24La Silla Slide Set. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 24ESO Press Releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 25The editor: SN 1987 A (Continued) 25Sun Rings Over La Silla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 25A. F. J. Moffat, W. Seggewiss: First Visitor Experience with PISCO: Phase

Oependent Polarization Variations of Southern Gaiactic WR + 0 Systems.. 26C. Waelkens, H. Lamers and R. Waters: HR 4049: an Old Low-Mass Star

Oisguised as a Young Massive Supergiant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 29S. van den Bergh: Supernova 1987 A - a Summary of the ESO Workshop held

from 6-8 July 1987 32S. O'Odorico: The Gaseous Environment of the Supernova 1987 A in the Large

Magellanic Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 34H. Oekker and S. O'Odorico: Updating and New Functions of EFOSC . . . . . . .. 34G. Raffi: Remote Control from Garehing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 35M. Tarenghi: ND Progress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 37M. Sarazin: Site Evaluation for the VLT: a Status Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 37ESO Image Proeessing Group: MIOAS Memo 39G. Schilling: Five Nights on a Bare Mountain - an Outsider's Look at La Silla . .. 39Staff Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 41P. Kunitzsch: A Medieval Reference to the Andromeda Nebula 42ESO Pictorial Atlas Now Available . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 42Aigunos Resumenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 43

44

cional. Ourante mas de una decada fue presi­dente dei Comite Oanes dei Cancer, 10 quedemuestra la vasta gama de sus intereses.

La mayaria de los astronomos daneses enalguna forma son sus estudiantes, y muchosde nosotros en otros lados hemos sido influ­enciados por 131 como post-doctarados 0

asociados. Y muchos apreciaron la generosa

Oesde el 1° de julio de 1987 ESO estaofreciendo el uso de control remoto desdeGarching como alternativa a los viajes a LaSilla, a los astronomos que tienen tiempo deobservacion al telescopio de 2.2 m. Los ins­trumentos disponibles son el espectrografoSoller & Chivens con un detector CCO y eleco usado en forma directa con el adapta­dar dei 2.2 m.

Los utilizadores encuentran en Garchinglas mismas consolas de control como las queexisten en el cuarto de control dei telescopiode 2.2 m. Ourante la sesion de observacionpueden obtener monitor dei campo, image­nes dei buscador dei telescopio e imagenes

Contents

hospitalidad de Sengt y Sigrid Strömgren.Si para un cientifico la marca de una vida

lIena de exito significa el haber tenido un granimpacto y haber contribuido a la ciencia enforma perdurable, entonces, en efecto, SengtStrömgren ha sido una persona afortunada.Sera extrafiado por todos aquellos que 10conocieron. L. Woltjer

CCO, y pueden enviar ordenes a los instru­mentos y telescopios (ver foto en la pagina35). Todo esto es posible a traves de unaIinea arrendada que tambien se usa paracomunicaciones telefonicas.

A pesar de que la mayorfa de las nochesadjudicadas en julio resultaron casi inutiliza­bles debido al mal tiempo, varios astronomostuvieron la oportunidad de familiarizarse conel sistema.

Alrededor de octubre de 1987 tambien elespectrografo CES con CCO (usando el te­lescopio CAT) podra ser utilizado a traves decontrol remoto desde Garching.