Radial Velocities

Abstract

The present report on the activities of IAU Commission 30, covering the triennium June 1, 1984 through June 1, 1987, will be somewhat different from its recent predecessors in both content and style. Over the preceding decade or so, the reports mainly emphasized the dramatic improvements in observing efficiency, achieved primarily through the general adoption of cross-correlation techniques, combined with modern detectors attached to either specialized spectrometers or to existing, more conventional instruments. A great surge of observational activity followed, directed towards a variety of astrophysical problems, some of which are of a more classical nature, but many of which are in entirely new classes of research. At the time of the previous reports, most of the major observational projects were still underway, even if some preliminary results were emerging. The proceedings of IAU Colloquium No. 88, Stellar Radial Velocities (L. Davis Press, 1985) contains a collection of papers on instrumentation and reduction techniques as well as on ongoing observing programs which remains a very useful source of references to this developmental phase as well as to the current state of the art.