The Swift Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope

The UV/Optical Telescope (UVOT) is one of three instruments flying aboard the Swift Gamma-ray Observatory. It is designed to capture the early (approximately 1 minute) UV and optical photons from the afterglow of gamma-ray bursts in the 170-600 nm band as well as long term observations of these afterglows. This is accomplished through the use of UV and optical broadband filters and grisms. The UVOT has a modified Ritchey-Chretien design with micro-channel plate intensified charged-coupled device detectors that record the arrival time of individual photons and provide sub-arcsecond positioning of sources. We discuss some of the science to be pursued by the UVOT and the overall design of the instrument.Comment: 55 Pages, 28 Figures, To be published in Space Science Review

GENERAL CATALOGUE OF VARIABLE STARS: CURRENT STATUS AND NEW NAME-LISTS

A short history of variable-star catalogsis presented. After the second World War, theInternational Astronomical Union asked astronomersof the Soviet Union to become responsible forvariable-star catalogs. Currently, the catalog is keptelectronically and is a joint project of the Institute ofAstronomy (Russian Academy of Sciences) and SternbergAstronomical Institute (Moscow University).We review recent trends in the field of variable-starcatalogs, discuss problems and new prospects relatedto modern large-scale automatic photometric skysurveys, outline the subject of discussions on thefuture of the variable-star catalogs in the profilecommissions of the IAU, and call for suggestions fromthe astronomical community