SXT Status Report 24 October - 30 October, 1994 David Alexander SUMMARY During the week of 24-30 October SXT carried out several tests in preparation for the combined eclipse observations and MSSTA rocket support. The rocket flight was originally scheduled for October 25 but minor problems and bad weather caused the postponement of the flight and its rescheduling for Nov 3. The occurrence of both eclipse and rocket flight on the same day has complicated SXT operations somewhat but a sequence of tests has proved successful an we are well prepared for Thursday's observations. Solar activity was low this week although there are several interesting active regions currently on the solar disk. OPERATIONS Operations this week consisted of continued support for the Sac Peak synoptic campaign, which finished on the 25th, testing Yohkoh operations and preparing SXT tables for next week's combined MSSTA rocket flight and eclipse observations on Nov 3. Our main efforts were involved with perfecting the OP commands and SXT tables necessary for the combined eclipse and rocket operations. The 'eclipse team' of Hara, Kano, Hudson, Lemen and Alexander worked together to devise what we think are good operational and observational procedures. Much of the hard work is in getting the OP commands correct and this was the responsibility of Hara-san and Kano-san, whose many hours of labour are much appreciated. A more detailed description of the planned eclipse/rocket operations can be obtained via anonymous ftp to isass0.solar.isas.ac.jp in the directory ftp/pub/eclipse. SOLAR ACTIVITY Solar activity was quiet this week. There were two GOES C-class events registered: a C1.2 on Oct-24 and a C4.7 on Oct 25, the latter originating from NOAA AR 7792. There are currently several active regions in the eastern half of the solar disk the biggest being AR7794. PERSONNEL Steve Kahler of Phillips Lab visited ISAS this week and gave an interesting seminar. Steve is spending 3 months in Toyokawa as a visiting professor. Jim Lemen returns to Palo Alto on Tuesday. He will be sorely missed. Marilyn Bruner and Nariaki Nitta (both of Lockheed) arrive this week for a month apiece. David Alexander leaves for the snowy climes of Montana on Saturday Nov 5. SCIENCE The Yohkoh seminar was held on Thursday October 27th with two very interesting talks. First Dr. K Kusano, a plasma physicist from Hiroshima University gave a talk entitled "A Solar Flare Triggering Mechanism based on the Woltjer-Taylor Minimum Energy Principle". Then Dr. S. Kahler of Phillips Laboratory in Massachusetts presented an equally interesting and entertaining talk entitled "Observation of CMEs in Space". Both these talks were well attended and generated interesting discussions. Steve Kahler was introduced to the Yohkoh database and obtained data for a whole bunch of interesting projects involving large-scale phenomena in the solar corona. Zdenek Svestka continues to work well on several projects, and may have made a breakthrough in his quest for giant arches. Lemen, Hudson and Alexander found some time to discuss the results from the Hawaii CDAW (a brief report of which is given below) and various issues to do with large-scale eruptive events. HAWAII CDAW (Jim Lemen) =========== The annual Coordinated Data Analysis Workshop (CDAW) was held 17-20 October 1994 at the Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii. This year's topic was Eruptive Events and was attended by approximately 25 people. Most of the participants were from Yohkoh team institutes in Japan and the States, but there were several additional participants: Dr Terry Forbes (Univ of New Hampshire), Dr Sarah Martin, and Drs Mukul Kundu and Antoinette Galvin (Univ of Maryland). Dr Galvin is a co-investigator on the SWICS experiment on Ulysses and her participation enabled the cross-comparison of Yohkoh observations and interplanetary events observed with the SWICS experiment. There many interesting topics that were pursued by approximately 10 small groups during two and half days using workstations at the Institute. On the first day and the last afternoon there were plenary sessions with individuals making brief reports of their results. Dr Peter Sturrock gave a very nice summary talk with an emphasis on the role of buoyancy in various types of eruptive events. A trip to the Mees Observatory on Friday after the meeting was enjoyed by about 10 people. It appears that many of the individual projects will result in publications in the refereed journals. Dr Richard Canfield and the other members of the IFA staff are to be thanked for their encouragement of this very productive meeting format. Thought for the week ==================== Don't look backwards, something might be gaining on you. (S. Paige) Quotes of the week ================== You can observe a lot, by just watching. (Yogi Berra) An eclipse of the Sun is when the moon comes between the Sun and the earth. An eclipse of the moon is when the Sun comes between the moon and the earth. An eclipse of the earth is when you put your hands over your eyes. Science made Stupid