Porous asymmetric membranes were prepared from polyetherimide polymer by the phase-inversion technique under different conditions. The performance of the membranes was tested for the removal of acetone vapour from nitrogen. A membrane which showed a high acetone permeability and a high selectivity was chosen and tested further for the separation of different organic vapours from nitrogen. The molecular structure of organic vapours and the selectivity were correlated. A strong correlation was also found between the chromatographic retention time of the organic vapour and the selectivity. These experimental results led to the conclusion that the sorption is the factor governing the separation of volatile organic compounds from nitrogen. A membrane was also prepared by coating the surface of a porous polyetherimide membrane with silicone rubber. The performance of membranes with and without silicone rubber coating was compared.

An x-ray astronomy experiment consisting of three collimated proportional counters and an X-ray Sky Monitor (XSM) was flown aboard the Indian Satellite IRS-P3 launched on March 21, 1996 from SHAR range in India. The Satellite is in a circular orbit of 830 km altitude with an orbital inclination of 98° and has three axis stabilized pointing capability. Each pointed-mode Proportional Counter (PPC) is a multilayer, multianode unit filled with P-10 gas (90% Ar + 10% CH4) at 800 torr and having an aluminized mylar window of 25 micron thickness. The three PPCs are identical and have a field of view of 2°×2° defined by silver coated aluminium honeycomb collimators. The total effective area of the three PPCs is about 1200 cm2. The PPCs are sensitive in 2-20 keV band. The XSM consists of a pin-hole of 1 cm2 area placed 16 cm above the anode plane of a 32 cm×32 cm position sensitive proportional counter sensitive in 3-8 keV interval. The position of the x-ray events is determined by charge division technique using nichrome wires as anodes. The principal objective of this experiment is to carry out timing studies of x-ray pulsars, x-ray binaries and other rapidly varying x-ray sources. The XSM will be used to detect transient x-ray sources and monitor intensity of bright x-ray binaries. Observations of black-hole binary Cyg X-1 and few other binary sources were carried out in early May and July-August 1996 period. Details of the x-ray detector characteristics are presented and preliminary results from the observations are discussed.

Reanalysis of the observations of Mars made at the Hida Observatory in 1975 with a new image processing method is reported. Red filter images taken in the period before vernal equinox (areocentric longitude of the sun Ls=0°) revealed dark surface features at the northern high latitudes, while blue filter images taken at the same time showed the extensive polar hood. The latitude of the northernmost feature observed was about 67°N. An extensive north polar cap, which is predicted by most of the existing models and observed with Viking, did not exist in our reanalyzed images obtained at the Hida Observatory in 1975.

In this paper it is explained how most of asteroids can avoid very close approach to Jupiter, to the earth for earth orbit crossing asteroids, and to Neptune for Kuiper-belt asteroids by mechanisms which work also for Neptune-Pluto system. In fact the mutual distance of the planets cannot become very small as the critical argument librates around 180° because of 2:3 mean motion resonance and the argument of perihelion of Pluto librates around 90°. And it is found that among nearly 40 Kuiper-belt asteroids discovered in recent years 40% have orbits similar to Pluto. For main-belt asteroids the distribution with respect to the semi-major axes has peculiar characteristics and the author tries to explain how their peaks and gaps are created. It is also found that 30% of 80 earth orbit crossing asteroids which have minimum perihelion distances less than 1.04AU have no chance to collide with the earth. Still 30% of them have a few probability to collide with the earth as they have dynamical characteristics of short-periodic comets.

A systematric method of exploring the 'geometrical' and 'non-geometrical' constants of the motion for an arbitrary spacetime is presented. This is done by introducing a series of coupled differential equation for the generators of the symmetry group of Vlasov's equation. The method is applied to the case of the maximaly symmetric spectime, and the geometrical and non-geometrical constants of motion are obtained.

This paper reports on the outline and the status of the TAMA-300 project, the 300 meter laser interferometer gravitational wave detector developed by a team of scientists of several research institutes and universities in Japan. In fact the project has been funded and its construction started at the National Astronomical Observatory, Mitaka, in spring 1995. And the constructions of the tunnels for the east-west and north-south arms and of the central building are completed and a half of pipes for laser beams were brought in. Very stable laser oscillator has been almost completed and mew techniques such as vibration isolations, recycling of laser power, and suspension of mirrors by double pendulums have been developed. In fact the purposes of the project are to establish techniques necessary for future km-class detectors and to operate the detector to catch possible gravitational wave events in nearby galaxies such as Andromeda, the target sensitivity being 3 × 10-21 at 300Hz.

Data acquisition system mounted on the Solar Flare Telescope at Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory is briefly described. The system is made up with CCD cameras, an image processor, a PCI-type PC and a SUN workstation. The image processor, MVC 150/40 comprises a variable scan acquisition module, an image manager and a binary correlator computational module. A typical polarization image of a sunspot is presented to demonstrate performance of the system.

Precise masses, radii, and luminosities from eclipsing binaries and colour-magnitude diagrams for open clusters are classic tools in empirical tests of stellar evolution models. We review the accuracy and completeness required for such data to discriminate between current models and describe some recent. results with implications for convection theory.

The aim of the paper is to analyse the extinction law in the giant H II region NGC 3603. The ratio R is found to be greater than 5.0. In front of the cluster the reddening law is found to be normal. We have obtained a distance of ~5.3 Kpc which is significantly smaller than those adopted so far.

The solar neighbourhood is the starting point for studies of the structure and evolution of the Galactic disk. Yet, our knowledge of the relative frequencies, distances, ages, chemical abundances, velocities, and birthplaces of the nearby stars is severely incomplete. We have determined complete, homogeneous, and precise such data for a kinematically unbiased sample of ~12,000 local F and G dwarf stars and describe a first, significant result from it.

Snapshots of eight SA and standard fields from low to high galactic latitudes were made using the KPNO 0.9m 2K × 2K CCD with a limiting magnitude from 19 to 22.5. The purpose of this study is to determine the vertical distribution of stars with respect to Galactic latitude and z-distance in comparison with the model simulation between intermediate population to the 'thick disk' component of scale height of a few kpc. Comparison of the preliminary results between observed and model simulation for 3 of the S fields shows good agreement both in V-mag and B- V color distributions. A bimodal distribution in B- V at high galactic latitude seems to be represented by a halo and 'thick disk' dwarf in the blue and by a normal disk dwarf population in the red.

We review observational evidence bearing on the formation of a prototypical large spiral galaxy, the Milky Way. New ground- and space-based studies of globular star clusters and dwarf spheroidal galaxies provide a wealth of information to constrain theories of galaxy formation. It appears likely that the Milky Way formed by an combination of rapid, dissipative collapse and mergers, but the relative contributions of these two mechanisms remain controversial. New evidence, however, indicates that initial star and star cluster formation occurred simultaneously over a volume that presently extends to twice the distance of the Magellanic Clouds.

We reexamined CDM texture large-scale structure (LSS) formation model. We confirmed that texture model is consistent with 4-year COBE data both in an open and a critical matter density (Ω0 = 1) universes, and then obtained normalization for density perturbation power spectrum. We next compare the power spectrum with LSS observation data. Contrary to the previous literature, we found that texture model matches with these data in an open universe no better than in an Ω0 = 1 universe. We also found that the model is more likely to fit these data in a cosmological constant dominated (Λ-) universe.