The Central Regions of the Galaxy and Galaxies Book

Advanced technologies in astronomy at various wavelengths have provided us with high-resolution and high-quality data of the central regions of nearby galaxies and of the Milky Way Galaxy. These data, both for the Galaxy and extragalactic centers, are now quite suitable for detailed comparative study. This IAU symposium was aimed at understanding the general characteristics of dynamics, ISM physics and magnetic fields, activities including inflow and outflow, as well as starburst, in the `galactic centers'. Special attention was also given to several cases for massive black holes in galaxies and the Galaxy, and to understanding the physics of nuclei associated with black holes.

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Proceedings of the August 1997 symposium. One hundred and ninety- four contributions present comparative studies on the data of the Milky Way and central regions of nearby galaxies. Included is information on galactic bulges, galactic center star clusters, star formation, starbursts, neutral ISM in the galactic center, molecular gas in the nuclei of galaxies, gas dynamics in the galactic center, the central parsecs of the milky way, magnetic and high-energy phenomena, black holes in galaxies, black hole in the galactic center, and black hole powering of AGN and jets. A sampling of topics: diffraction-limited IR speckle masking observations of the central regions of Seyfert galaxies, the stellar content of the Quintuplet cluster, and the structural characteristics of spiral bulges. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.