STANDARD STAR NEWSLETTER No 32 CONTENTS: Editorial p.1 Note from the Working Group Chair, Chris Corbally p. 1 Abstracts of Papers (Glushneva et al., Nidever et al.) p. 2 Websites of Interest p. 3 Announcements of Meetings p. 3 Announcements p. 4 From the editor Editing this newsletter has provided distraction from a tooth scheduled for a root-canal operation. As the nerve died in the nethermost regions of my tooth, I was delighted by reports of precision radial velocity standards, a meeting to spur cooperation among stellar astrophysicists in Romania, and yet more evidence that our sun has a twin in 18 Sco -- more than enough to dull any pain! Before the publication of the next newsletter, an important meeting for our field will take place in Tucson, AZ. May I draw your attention (once again!) to the Garrison/MK meeting to take place in June? It promises to be a delightful and worthwhile meeting. See page 4. Richard Gray, Editor grayro@appstate.edu A Note From the Chair International Astronomical Union Working Group on Standard Stars (WGSS) On a whim I casually searched abstracts over the last 3 months for mention of standard stars. Now, such mention is much more likely to be in the body of a paper's text, so I was quite encouraged to find ten such abstracts. The topics included a fair range of astronomy: spiral galaxy photometry, polarimetry of O-type stars, artifacts in an Infrared Space Observatory's spectrometer, interpretation of symbiotic stars, database for rotational velocities of A-type stars, high proper motion stars, nighttime sky brightness, spectropolarimetry, standard spectra for synthesis, moving group memberships. The list is by no means complete. You will add to it yourself. One topic I would add is settling the spectral classification of T dwarfs, now that a moderate number have been discovered. A couple of papers in the January ApJ volume 564, one by Adam Burgasser et al. and the other by Thomas Geballe et al., give slightly different approaches to the question. You will probably join me in wanting both groups to continue to explore the topic, and with some collaboration between them, so that we shall get the best possible classification scheme for these ultra-cool objects. Well, good luck to them ... and to you in your researches, Chris Corbally ccorbally@as.arizona.edu Abstracts EFFECTIVE TEMPERATURES OF SOLAR TYPE STARS I.N.GLUSHNEVA, V.I.SHENAVRIN, and I.A.ROSHCHINA footnotesize Sternberg Astronomical Institute of Moscow State University, 13 Universitetskij Prospect, 119899, Moscow, Russia For 29 stars with spectral types from G0 - G5 and with color indices 0.60 <= B - V <= 0.68 and parallaxes obtained by the Hipparcos satellite, effective temperatures, angular diameters and radii are determined by means of the method of infrared fluxes (IRFM) on the basis of $JHKLM$ photometry. Effective temperatures (T_1) obtained by solving iteratively for the T_eff and the angular diameter of the star, and, (T_2), by using a modification of the IRFM method, the so-called observational R-factor, are compared. The mean differences between these two effective temperatures do not exceed 1% in any of the IR bands. For the majority of the investigated stars (23 out of 29) the bolometric magnitudes are less than that of the Sun. The analysis of five parameters of the solar - type stars investigated in this paper, e.g., the effective temperature, bolometric magnitude, radius, metallicity and infrared color indices, shows that 18 Sco seems to be the most acceptable candidate for a solar ``twin''. Accepted by Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions For preprints, contact glushir@sai.msu.ru Radial Velocities for 889 Late-type Stars David L. Nidever$^1$, Geoffrey W. Marcy$^{1,2}$, R. Paul Butler$^3$, Debra A. Fischer$^2$, Steven S. Vogt$^4$ $^1$ Department of Physics and Astronomy, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA USA 94132 $^2$ Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA USA 94720 $^3$ Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington DC, USA 20015-1305 $^4$ UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA 95064 We report radial velocities for 844 FGKM--type main sequence and subgiant stars and 45 K giants, most of which had either low-precision velocity measurements or none at all. These velocities differ from the standard stars of Udry et~al. (1999; IAU Coll 170, 367) by 0.035 km/s (RMS) for the 26 FGK standard stars in common. The zero--point of our velocities differs from that of Udry et al.: = +0.053 km/s. Thus these new velocities agree with the best known standard stars both in precision and zero--point, to well within 0.1 km/s. Nonetheless, both these velocities and the standards suffer from three sources of systematic error, namely, convective blueshift, gravitational redshift, and spectral type mismatch of the reference spectrum. These systematic errors are here forced to be zero for G2V stars by using the Sun as reference, with Vesta and day sky as proxies. But for spectral types departing from solar, the systematic errors reach 0.3 km/s in the F and K stars and 0.4 km/s in M dwarfs. Multiple spectra were obtained for all 889 stars during four years, and 782 of them exhibit velocity scatter less than 0.1 km/s. These stars may serve as radial velocity standards if they remain constant in velocity. We found 11 new spectroscopic binaries and report orbital parameters for them. Accepted by ApJS For preprints, contact D. Nidever, dnidever@stars.sfsu.edu; also available at http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~dnidever/research.html Websites of Interest}}} A website that I have had cause to visit more than once during the last few weeks is that of the Departamento de Astrofisica of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, in particular their page on stellar spectra (http://www.ucm.es/info/Astrof/spectra.html). This website contains extensive lists of libraries of stellar spectra, spectral classification atlases, links to stellar spectroscopy sites on the web and software. Well worth a visit. For the last three years, ever since moving into our new building, I have lost track of my copy of the Keenan-McNeil spectral classification atlas of the cooler stars. A colleague recently sent me a pristine copy, still wrapped in plastic, but an online version, with superbly scanned plates can be found at http://www.geocities.com/robinriordan. Two online compilations of near-infrared (JHK bands) standard stars, complete with finding charts can be found at http://marple.as.utexas.edu/~dfl/ROKCAMman/standardstars/ 2MASSstandards.html and http://www.ucolick.org/~mountain/mthamilton/techdocs/ standards/ARNICA.tb1.html. Bob Garrison's list of Anchor Points for the MK system may be found at http://www.astro.utoronto.ca/~garrison/ mkstds.html. Please send along your ``websites of interest'', especially if they are concerned with standard stars, for inclusion in the next newsletter. Meetings IAU Symposium 215 STELLAR ROTATION Dates: 11 - 15 November 2002 Location: Cancun, Yucatan, Mexico Program: This symposium on stellar rotation, the first since IAU colloquium #4 in 1969 will include presentations on observations of rotating stars, the effect of rotation on abundances and magnetic fields, rotation and the physics of stellar interiors, rotation and stellar winds, how rotation affects the evolution of the sun and other stars, and the involvement of rotation in the final stages of stellar evolution, including the effects of rotation on nucleosynthesis and supernova remnants. Contact person: Andre Maeder, andre.maeder@obs.unige.ch See http://www.astro.ugto.mx/~eenens/iau215/ for more information. NEW RESULTS IN STELLAR PHYSICS Dates: 3-5 October 2002 Location: Timisoara, Romania Scientific Objectives: This meeting is the second international seminar organized by the South-Eastern Branch of the European Astronomical Society. Its goal is to foster cooperation among regional astronomers, particularly in the areas of stellar physics, stellar evolution, pulsating stars, binary systems, photometry of variable stars and models of stellar structure. Cooperative programs of research will be proposed covering both the observational and the theoretical areas. Contact persons: Magda Stanvinschi & Ladislau Farkas, who may be contacted at fax: +401 337 33 89, phone: +401 335 68 02, +401 335 80 10 or email: magda@aira.astro.ro, lfarkas@astro.tm.edu.ro Pre-registration is due by 30 April 2002 to magda@aira.astro.ro See http://www.astro.ro/timisoara2002.html for more information GARRISON FESTSCHRIFT/MK MEETING Dates: 10-11 June, 2002 Location: Arizona Inn, Tucson, AZ, USA Program: This meeting is being held to honor Bob Garrison on his retirement, and will be in the spirit of previous MK meetings held in 1983 and 1993. The scientific program will include talks on all aspects of spectral classification and other topics related to Bob's research interests, including spectral classification in the infrared and the ultraviolet, classification of hot subdwarfs, L and T dwarfs and O-type stars, the NStars program, classification of peculiar stars and binary companions, automatic classification, pulsation modes in Red Giants, science with small telescopes, galaxy classification, and more. Contact person: Richard Gray, email: grayro@appstate.edu Deadline for Registration: 12 May, 2002 See http://stellar.phys.appstate.edu/garrison for more information and electronic registration. Announcements DICTIONARY OF ASTRONOMY AND COSMOLOGY English - Spanish, Spanish - English Science Dictionary publisher Editorial Castilla La Vieja has just released the Dictionary of Astronomy and Cosmology (English - Spanish, Spanish - English) which some readers of this newsletter may find of use. This is an exhaustive reference work of 1,041 pages and over 24,000 entries, providing in-depth treatment of terminology in the space sciences. Sample translation sentences abound throughout the book. More information as well as sample pages can be obtained by visiting the website http://castilla1492.freeyellow.com or by inquiring via e-mail at castilla@technologist.com. Contributions to the next Newsletter, due out in September 2002, will be welcomed at any time by grayro@appstate.edu. WHEN SUBMITTING AN ABSTRACT, PLEASE USE THE FOLLOWING TEMPLATE IF POSSIBLE: \begin{center}{\Large\bf{ Title }}\\{\bf{ A. Author$^1$ and B. Author$^2$ }}\\{\footnotesize $^1$ Institute One and Address \\ $^2$ Institute Two and Address }\end{center} \smallskip{ TEXT OF ABSTRACT }\\{\bf Accepted by} JOURNAL \\{\it For preprints, contact} YOUR ELECTRONIC ADDRESS