Engineering Papers⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Harrington, Robert S.

Publications and source records attributed to Harrington, Robert S..

Search for planet X

The observation of the region of the sky in which it is believed Planet X should now be, based on perturbations observed in the motions of Uranus and Neptune, was determined, and there was no reason to update that determination. A limited area of that region was photographed, and that will be continued. A given area is photographed with the twin 20 cm astrograph in New Zealand on two successive nights near the time that area is in opposition, and these plates are blinked in Washington to identify anything that has moved. The predicted region is in the south, which requires observations from a southern station, and it is in opposition in the April to June period, which means observations have not yet started for the year. Blinking will be done as soon as the plates are received in Washington.

Harrington, Robert S.↗

Astrophysics of brown dwarfs; Proceedings of the Workshop, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, Oct. 14, 15, 1985

Various reports on theoretical and observational studies of brown dwarfs (BDs) are presented. The topics considered include: astrometric detection of BDs, search for substellar companions to nearby stars using IR imaging, constraints on BD mass function from optical and IR searches, properties of stellar objects near the main sequence mass limit, search for low-mass stellar companions with the HF precision velocity technique, dynamical search for substellar objects, search for BDs in the IRAS data base, deep CCD survey for low mass stars in the disk and halo, the Berkeley search for a faint solar companion, the luminosity function for late M stars, astronomic search for IR dwarfs, and the role of the Space Telescope in the detection of BDs. Also addressed are: theoretical significance of BDs, evolution of super-Jupiters, compositional indicators in IR spectra of BDs, evolution of BDs and the evolutionary status of VB8B, the position of BDs on universal diagrams, theoretical determination of the minimum protostellar mass, Population II BDs and dark halos.

Kafatos, Minas C.↗