Humpback and Fin Whaling in the Gulf of Maine from 1800 to 1918

The history of whaling in the Gulf of Maine was reviewed primarily to estimate removals of humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, especially during the 19th century. In the decades from 1800 to 1860, whaling effort consisted of a few localized, small-scale, shore-based enterprises on the coast of Maine and Cape Cod, Mass. Provincetown and Nantucket schooners occasionally conducted short cruises for humpback whales in New England waters. With the development of bomb-lance technology at mid century, the ease of killing humpback whales and fin whales, Balaenoptera physalus, increased. As a result, by the 1870’s there was considerable local interest in hunting rorquals (baleen whales in the family Balaenopteridae, which include the humpback and fin whales) in the Gulf of Maine. A few schooners were specially outfitted to take rorquals in the late 1870’s and 1880’s although their combined annual take was probably no more than a few tens of whales. Also in about 1880, fishing steamers began to be used to hunt whales in the Gulf of Maine. This steamer fishery grew to include about five vessels regularly engaged in whaling by the mid 1880’s but dwindled to only one vessel by the end of the decade. Fin whales constituted at least half of the catch, which exceeded 100 animals in some years. In the late 1880’s and thereafter, few whales were taken by whaling vessels in the Gulf of Maine

Loyal Oat

This bulletin provides a brief overview of the Loyal oat. Information regarding its origin, agronomic characteristics, performance data and other traits is provided

A changing inner radius in the accretion disc of Q0056-363?

Q0056-363 is the most powerful X-ray quasar known to exhibit a broad, likely relativistic iron line (Porquet & Reeves 2003). It has been observed twice by XMM-$Newton$, three and half years apart (July 2000 and December 2003). In the second observation, the UV and soft X-ray fluxes were fainter, the hard X-ray power law flatter, and the iron line equivalent width (EW) smaller than in the 2000 observation. These variations can all be explained, at least qualitatively, if the disc is truncated in the second observation. We report also on the possible detection of a transient, redshifted iron absorption line during the 2003 observation.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

A simultaneous XMM-Newton and BeppoSAX observation of the archetypal Broad Line Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548

We report the spectral analysis of a long XMM-Newton observation of the well-studied, moderate luminosity Broad Line Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548. The source was at an historically average brightness and we find the hard (3-10 keV) spectrum can be well fitted by a power law of photon index gamma ~ 1.75, together with reflection. The only feature in the hard X-ray spectrum is a narrow emission line near 6.4 keV, with an equivalent width of ~ 60 eV. The energy and strength of this line is consistent with fluorescence from `neutral' iron distant from the central continuum source. We find no evidence for a broad Fe K line, with an upper limit well below previous reports, suggesting the inner accretion disc is now absent or highly ionised. The addition of simultaneous BeppoSAX data allows the analysis to be extended to 200 keV, yielding important constraints on the total reflection. Extrapolation of the hard X-ray power law down to 0.3 keV shows a clear `soft excess' below ~ 0.7 keV. After due allowance for the effects of a complex warm absorber, measured with the XMM-Newton RGS, we find the soft excess is better described as a smooth upward curvature in the continuum flux below ~ 2 keV. The soft excess can be modelled either by Comptonised thermal emission or by enhanced reflection from the surface of a highly ionised disc.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, accepted by MNRAS; minor changes to text and figure

Discovery of ultra-fast outflows in a sample of Broad Line Radio Galaxies observed with Suzaku

We present the results of a uniform and systematic search for blue-shifted Fe K absorption lines in the X-ray spectra of five bright Broad-Line Radio Galaxies (BLRGs) observed with Suzaku. We detect, for the first time at X-rays in radio-loud AGN, several absorption lines at energies greater than 7 keV in three out of five sources, namely 3C 111, 3C 120 and 3C 390.3. The lines are detected with high significance according to both the F-test and extensive Monte Carlo simulations. Their likely interpretation as blue-shifted Fe XXV and Fe XXVI K-shell resonance lines implies an origin from highly ionized gas outflowing with mildly relativistic velocities, in the range 0.04-0.15c. A fit with specific photo-ionization models gives ionization parameters in the range log_xi~4-5.6 and column densities of N_H~10^22-10^23 cm^-2. These characteristics are very similar to those of the Ultra-Fast Outflows (UFOs) previously observed in radio-quiet AGN. Their estimated location within ~0.01-0.3pc from the central super-massive black hole suggests a likely origin related with accretion disk winds/outflows. Depending on the absorber covering fraction, the mass outflow rate of these UFOs can be comparable to the accretion rate and their kinetic power can correspond to a significant fraction of the bolometric luminosity and is comparable to their typical jet power. Therefore, these UFOs can play a significant role in the expected feedback from the AGN on the surrounding environment and can give us further clues on the relation between the accretion disk and the formation of winds/jets in both radio-quiet and radio-loud AGN.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; corrected reference

Contemporaneous VLBA 5 GHz Observations of Large Area Telescope Detected Blazars

The radio properties of blazars detected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have been observed contemporaneously by the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). In total, 232 sources were observed with the VLBA. Ninety sources that were previously observed as part of the VLBA Imaging and Polarimetry Survey (VIPS) have been included in the sample, as well as 142 sources not found in VIPS. This very large, 5 GHz flux-limited sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) provides insights into the mechanism that produces strong γ-ray emission. In particular, we see that γ-ray emission is related to strong, uniform magnetic fields in the cores of the host AGN. Included in this sample are non-blazar AGNs such as 3C84, M82, and NGC 6251. For the blazars, the total VLBA radio flux density at 5 GHz correlates strongly with γ-ray flux. The LAT BL Lac objects tend to be similar to the non-LAT BL Lac objects, but the LAT flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) are significantly different from the non-LAT FSRQs. Strong core polarization is significantly more common among the LAT sources, and core fractional polarization appears to increase during LAT detection

Absorption line series and autoionization resonance structure analysis in the ultraviolet spectrum of Sr I

Photoelectric spectrometer to measure absorption line series and autoionization resonance in ultraviolet spectrum of strontium vapo

The Suzaku view of 3C 382

We present a long Suzaku observation of 3C 382. A Swift BAT spectrum from the 58-month survey is also analyzed, together with an archival XMM-Newton EPIC exposure. Our main result is the finding with Suzaku of a broad FeK line with a relativistic profile consistent with emission from an accretion disk at tens of gravitational radii from the central black hole. The XIS data indicate emission from highly ionized iron and allow us to set tight, albeit model-dependent, constraints on the inner and outer radii of the disk reflecting region, r_in~10r_g and r_out~20r_g, respectively, and on the disk inclination, i~30deg. Two ionized reflection components are possibly observed, with similar contributions of ~10% to the total continuum. A highly ionized one, with log_xi~3, which successfully models the relativistic line and a mildly ionized one, with log_xi~1.5, which models the narrow Fe K line and high energy hump. When both these components are included, there is no further requirement for an additional black body soft excess below 2keV. The Suzaku data confirm the presence of a warm absorber previously known from grating studies. After accounting for all the spectral features, the intrinsic photon index of the X-ray continuum is ~1.8 with a cutoff energy at ~200keV, consistent with Comptonization models and excluding jet-related emission up to these energies. Comparison of the X-ray properties of 3C 382 and other BLRGs to Seyferts confirms the idea that the distinction between radio-loud and radio-quiet AGN at X-rays is blurred.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap