The three years that have elapsed since the Harvard meeting of the Union have witnessed steady progress in the determination of radial velocities. While the three large Pacific Coast Observatories have naturally been able to make the greatest additions to radial velocity work, the Yerkes Observatory, the Simeiz Observatory and the Observatory of the University of Michigan have also made valuable contributions. It is a pleasure to report that there will soon be three major accessions to the list of observatories capable of determining radial velocities. The David Dunlap Observatory of the University of Toronto with its 74-inch telescope, which should be in operation soon after the meeting, will have radial velocities as a prominent feature of its programme. The McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas with an 80-inch telescope now under construction should be ready to commence operations in 1936 and will undertake an extensive radial velocity programme. The Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford has now been granted permission by the Courts to remove to Pretoria, South Africa, and will establish there a 74-inch reflecting telescope, which will also be largely employed in the determination of the urgently needed radial velocities of the southern stars fainter than 5.5 visual magnitude. The Commission may, I believe, congratulate itself that substantial assistance in the preliminary steps leading to this permission of removal was provided by our action at the last meeting in presenting a resolution to the Union, duly passed by the General Assembly, pointing out the urgent need for additional radial velocities in the southern sky, and strongly supporting the project of the Radcliffe Observatory to establish a large telescope at Pretoria.
30. Commission des Vitesses Radiales Stellaires
