7. Progress report on the project in Radio Astronomy at the G. R. Agassiz station of Harvard Observatory

Abstract

Two years ago I reported at the Jodrell Bank symposium on the initiation of the Agassiz Station project in Radio Astronomy. At that time the 24-ft. antenna was under construction and the electronic equipment for observation of the 21-cm. line of neutral hydrogen was being built by Harold I. Ewen, who is the co-director of the project. The first successful observations were obtained in the autumn of 1953 and reported early in 1954 (see Bok[1]). Since then two papers have been published giving the results of the first studies by Heeschen[2] and Lilley[3]; a report on the equipment and the basic programme was given by Bok and Ewen[4], Earlier this year, at the Princeton Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Bok[5] drew heavily upon the Agassiz Station results in a paper entitled ‘Gas and Dust in Interstellar Clouds’, in which an attempt was made to blend the results of radio and optical research. We note also at this point a joint paper by Heeschen and Lilley[6] in which attention was drawn to the important role of Gould's Belt in the distribution of neutral hydrogen in the vicinity of the sun.