Lists citations with abstracts for aerospace related reports obtained from world wide sources and announces documents that have recently been entered into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Database.

This outstanding thesis by Dominic Bowman provides a thorough investigation of long-standing questions as to whether amplitude modulation is astrophysical, whether it offers insights into pulsating stars, and whether simple beating of modes with stable amplitudes is unrecognised because of a lack of frequency resolution. In this thesis, the author studied a uniform sample of 983 delta Scuti stars—the most common type of main-sequence heat engine pulsator—that were observed nearly continuously for 4 years at stunning photometric precision of only a few parts per million by the Kepler space mission. With no mission planned to supersede the Kepler 4-year data set, this thesis will stand as the definitive study of these questions for many years. With revolutionary photometric data from the planet-hunting Kepler space mission, asteroseismic studies have been carried out on many hundreds of main-sequence solar-type stars and about 10,000 red giants. It is easy to understand why those stochastically driven stars have highly variable amplitudes. Over much of the rest of the Hertzsprung–Russell (HR) diagram, stellar pulsations are driven by heat mechanisms, which are much more regular than the stochastic driving in solar-like pulsators. Yet for decades, amplitude and frequency modulation of pulsation modes have been observed in almost all types of heat-driven pulsating stars. The author shows that the amplitude and frequency modulation are astrophysical, and he has investigated their implications and prospects to provide new insights into the delta Scuti stars and the many other types of heat-engine pulsators across the HR diagram.

Annotation Contains 35 papers presented as part of the August 1999 workshop. The opening papers review photometric techniques, spectroscopic techniques, and theoretical modeling of the pulsations. Shorter contributions discuss such topics as double-mode SX phoenicis variables in globular clusters, convective effects on p-mode stability in delta Scuti stars, problems encountered in the Hipparcos variable stars analysis, and a list of delta Scuti stars and their associated parameters. No subject index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts aims to present a comprehensive documen tation of the literature concerning all aspects of astronomy, astrophysics, and their border fields. It is devoted to the recording, summarizing, and indexing of the relevant publications throughout the world. Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts is prepared by a special department of the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union. Volume 34 records literature published in 1983 and received before February 17, 1984. Some older documents which we received late and which are not surveyed in earlier volumes are included too. We acknowledge with thanks contributions of our colleagues all over the world. We also express our gratitude to all organiza tions, observatories, and publishers which provide us with complimentary copies of their publications. Starting with Volume 33, all the recording, correction, and data processing work was done by means of computers. The recording was done by our technical staff members Ms. Helga Ballmann, Ms. Mona El-Choura and Ms. Monika Kohl. Mr. Martin Schlotelburg and Mr. Ulrich Oberall supported our task by careful proofreading. It is a pleasure to thank them all for their encouragement. Heidelberg, March 1984 The Editors Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . Concordance Relation: ICSU-AB-AAA 3 Abbreviations 10 Periodicals, Proceedings, Books, Activities 001 Periodicals . . . . . . . . . . . 15 002 Bibliographical Publications, Documentation, Catalogues, Atlases 50 003 Books ...... . 58 004 History of Astronomy 67 005 Biography . . 71 006 Personal Notes 73 007 Obituaries . . .

As with the author’s recent books Extreme Explosions and Under a Crimson Sun, the complex topic of star clusters is broken down and made accessible with clear links to other areas of astronomy in a language which the non-specialist can easily read and enjoy. The full range of topics are addressed regarding how star clusters are formed. Why is it some are dense conglomerates of stars while others are looser associations? Are the young, brilliant clusters seen in neighboring galaxies such as the Large Magellanic Cloud, M33 or M82 analogous to the ancient globulars seen in the Milky Way? How will these clusters change as their stars wane and die? More interestingly, how does living in a dense star cluster affect the fates of the stars and any attendant planets that accompany them? Star clusters form many of the most dazzling objects in the astronomers’ catalogs. Many amateur astronomers are interested in exploring how these objects are created and what it would be like to live among these objects. From the historical views of how star clusters came about to the most recent assumptions about how stars within these clusters evolve, different strands of science, from observation to theory, are woven together into a compelling investigation specifically targeted at amateur astronomers.

Simon Murphy's thesis has significant impact on the wide use of the revolutionary Kepler Mission data, leading to a new understanding in stellar astrophysics. It first provides a deep characterisation and comparison of the Kepler long cadence and short cadence data, with particular insight into the Kepler reduction pipeline. It then brings together modern reviews of rotation and peculiarities in A-type stars, and their relationship with the pulsating delta Scuti stars. This is the first combined review of these subjects since the classic monograph by Sydney Wolff, "The A stars," was published three decades ago. The thesis presents a novel technique, Super-Nyquist Asteroseismology, that has opened up the asteroseismic study of thousands of Kepler stars. It shows case studies of delta Scuti stars examining amplitude growth, super-Nyquist pulsation, and pulsation in a high-amplitude, population II SX Phoenicis star in a 343-d binary. This work informs our understanding of the relation of rotation to peculiarity, hence has applications to atomic diffusion theory. This is a brilliant thesis written in an elegant and engaging style.