Page 1 PROGRESS REPORT THE SOLAR-A SOFT X-RAY TELESCOPE (SXT) PROGRAM (CONTRACT NAS8-00119) (for July 2001) OVERVIEW The YOHKOH Mission is a program of the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) with collaboration by the U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U. K. Science and Engineering Research Council. The YOHKOH satellite was launched on 30 August 1991 from Kagoshima Space Center (KSC) in Japan. The purpose of this mission is to study high energy phenomena in solar flares and the Sun's corona. Under an international cooperative agreement, Lockheed Martin, under NASA contract, is providing a scientific investigation using the Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT), one of the primary experiments of the mission. The SXT was developed at the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in cooperation with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Tokyo. MAJOR PROGRAMMATIC ACTIVITIES IN THE MONTH The dominant activity was participating in the Senior Review and the anticipation of the result on subsequent year funding. Resources always seem to be very tight and no matter how frugal each team is there never seems to be enough to satisfy all of the needs. The instrument is still operating well and the highly disciplined and experienced team continues to perform admirably. SOLAR ACTIVITY July was characterized by low solar activity with only two M-class flares in the first three weeks of the month - neither observed well by Yohkoh, unfortunately. There were only five numbered NOAA regions on July 7 and 8! But as usual there were things to watch, including a coronal "island universe" - a group of small active regions apparently surrounded entirely by coronal-hole regions (CMP about July 15, see below). During the final days of July, the largest event was C7.8 on July 28 and the GOES background level fell to B3. CAMPAIGNS SXT participated in JOP 100, "Active Region DEM for Heating & Magnetography Studies". The campaign ran on July 12,15,17,19,23, for four hours at a time. SXT made PFIs in all five analysis filters. SXT also took part in another campaign, led by CDS, during week 29. Its purpose was to study velocity fields at the footpoints of interconnecting loops. We fortunately had a good target with ICLs among ARs 9537, 9539, and 9551. Page 2 SCIENCE Alexander worked with Bob Stern and Loren Acton on utilizing the 10 years of Yohkoh data to determine whether G-type stars in the Hyades cluster show evidence for cycles similar to that of the Sun. They concluded that these stars have very long cycles compared to the Sun, a cycle identical in length and magnitude to the Sun, weak or no cycles, or cycles which are integral or sub-multiples of the solar cycle. This is being presented as a poster at the Cool Stars Workshop. SXT observed a coronal "island universe" - a group of small active regions apparently surrounded entirely by coronal-hole regions. It is an "island" because it's surrounded by coronal holes, much like an anemone active region as seen in soft X-rays. The images, however, show not just a single active region within the anemone, but a whole complex of them - like an island universe. Using these data, Hudson suggests that a solar magnetic structure embedded in a coronal hole does not necessarily form the base of a coronal streamer. This is rather surprising, since open field lines may well extend from active regions, as evidenced by Type III radio bursts. Do the active regions within this "island universe" show X-ray jets or Type III bursts? Please stay tuned. PUBLICATIONS Submitted: "Observation of the coronal hard X-ray sources of the 1998 April 23 Flare", J. Sato, ApJ "Revisiting the Determination of the Coronal Heating Function from Yohkoh Data", Aschwanden, M. J., ApJL "The Magnetic Free Energy and a CME in Active Region 8299", Thomas R. Metcalf, Donald L. Mickey, Barry J. LaBonte, and Leigh Ann Ryder, ApJ. "Hard X-radiation from a Fast Coronal Ejection": H. S. Hudson, T. Kosugi, N. V. Nitta, and M. Shimojo, ApJ Letters (2001). Accepted: "Recurrent flare/CME events from an emerging flux region", Nariaki V. Nitta and Hugh S. Hudson, GRL. "Solar Constant": H. S. Hudson, article for the McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology, 9th Edition (2001). "The Origin and Development of Transient Coronal Holes": S. W. Kahler and H. S. Hudson, JGR (2001). Page 3 Published: "Soft X-ray Luminosity and Photospheric Magnetic Field in Quiet Sun" by A.A. Pevtsov and L. W. Acton, ApJ, 554, 416-423 (2001). PUBLIC USE OF SXT IMAGES We are continuing to make Yohkoh/SXT images available for a variety of uses. Efforts continue to make selected images available on the LMSAL SXT WWW homepage (http://www.lmsal.com/SXT/). We receive requests for the Yohkoh posters (#2 and #3) by way of the form on the SXT homepage. Currently we receive requests via our homepage at the rate of 2 or 3 per day. The WEB access statistics in July were 103140 accesses and 6,777 Mbytes transferred for the SXT website and 213092 accesses and 12,263 Mbytes transferred for the YPOP website. YOHKOH OPERATIONS AND HEALTH Yohkoh and the SXT continue to function very well. SXT experienced a normal level of Single Event Upset (SEU) events during the month: SXT Bit Map Error 06-Jul-01 Pass 1: 010706-0927 Recovered in the same pass. SXT Bit Map Error 06-Jul-01 Pass 4: 010706-1237 Recovered in the same pass. SXT Bit Map Error 21-Jul-01 Pass 1: 010721-0413 Recovered in the same pass. SXT Bit Map Error 24-Jul-01 Pass 1: 010724-0309 Recovered in the same pass. Page 4 DATA FLOW Month Full Frame Images Observing Region Images Received Lost Received Lost Loss % QT FL Tot Thru May-99 621636 227468 2505434 614197 3119631 1111143 26.10 Jun-99 6217 1915 23542 13051 36593 10086 21.61 Jul-99 5591 1745 20409 25747 46156 9670 17.32 Aug-99 6827 2503 21725 23361 45086 11844 20.80 Sep-99 5768 2011 21890 3434 25324 10846 29.99 Oct-99 5768 2308 22994 10487 33481 11517 25.59 Nov-99 7552 3425 20754 18772 39526 11974 23.25 Dec-99 7488 2791 22047 5354 27401 10663 28.01 Jan-00 5426 1736 19802 4040 23842 8958 27.31 Feb-00 6533 2052 21801 7017 28818 8982 23.76 Mar-00 6447 2007 22692 21914 44606 11192 20.06 Apr-00 6412 2100 31195 7214 38409 13438 25.92 May-00 6995 1556 28175 14961 43136 8967 17.21 Jun-00 7043 1722 24413 16369 40782 8690 17.57 Jul-00 6674 1920 23505 31739 55244 10235 15.63 Aug-00 9623 1996 20925 1197 22122 6577 22.92 Sep-00 8835 2240 22233 5764 27997 8307 22.88 Oct-00 6348 1524 23309 6629 29938 7916 20.91 Nov-00 6525 1639 20087 10318 30405 6972 18.65 Dec-00 6585 1918 20718 5422 26140 8071 23.59 Jan-01 5610 1231 20469 3161 23630 7317 23.64 Feb-01 6917 1497 25366 1144 26510 7871 22.89 Mar-01 6851 1272 26315 17139 43454 9470 17.89 Apr-01 5531 1804 15991 20001 35992 9216 20.39 May-01 7410 1758 21042 1767 22809 7152 23.87 Jun-01 5362 727 20216 5630 25846 3822 12.88 Total 787974 274865 3067049 895829 3962878 1340896 25.28 Number of Full Frame Images Received: 787974 Number of Observing Region Images Received: 3962878 Total: 4750852 Approximate Number of Shutter Moves/CCD Readouts: 8099335 NOTES: * The loss of images is mainly due to BDR overwrites, but there are also occasional DSN dumps which are lost. * It is common to have observing regions which contain more than 64 lines, which requires multiple exposures to make a single observing region image. This is why the number of shutter moves is larger than the number of images received plus those lost. Page 5 ENGINEERING SUMMARY TABLE Month Avg Dark Level # of Dark Spikes CCD Warmings Front Optical (DN) (e/sec) Over 48 Over 64 High / # Support Trans Temp /Days Temp (%) Jun-99 59.40 1083.0 230091 42440 22.0 N/A Jul-99 59.78 1097.5 231236 46337 23.8 / 1 20.6 N/A Aug-99 59.39 1083.0 229319 43067 21.7 N/A Sep-99 60.04 1107.3 231585 49084 21.8 N/A Oct-99 59.66 1092.9 229735 45263 22.8 N/A Nov-99 59.90 1102.0 231288 47102 23.0 N/A Dec-99 60.55 1126.3 233523 53920 22.5 / 2 25.3 N/A Jan-00 60.27 1115.9 233820 50214 23.4 N/A Feb-00 60.93 1140.6 235079 56836 23.8 N/A Mar-00 60.72 1132.8 234174 54661 22.9 N/A Apr-00 61.10 1147.0 235252 58348 22.2 N/A May-00 61.00 1143.1 234569 57445 21.2 N/A Jun-00 61.19 1150.3 235622 58946 22.8 N/A Jul-00 61.96 1179.3 238114 66905 19.3 N/A Aug-00 61.27 1153.4 236108 59965 56.9 / 2 21.7 N/A Sep-00 61.08 1146.2 235644 58449 22.1 N/A Oct-00 61.44 1159.5 237142 61667 23.1 N/A Nov-00 60.99 1142.7 235849 57271 24.2 N/A Dec-00 61.59 1165.2 237454 63656 23.8 / 2 21.8 N/A Jan-01 61.64 1167.3 238962 62922 22.2 N/A Feb-01 61.84 1174.6 239218 65324 23.5 N/A Mar-01 61.89 1176.7 239128 65898 23.1 N/A Apr-01 61.92 1177.5 239784 66169 22.6 N/A May-01 62.25 1189.9 240631 69412 22.8 N/A Jun-01 62.17 1187.1 240572 68588 21.6 N/A NOTES: * The dark current calculations are using full half resolution 2.668 sec images not taken in during the SAA. The dark current rate assumes a "fat zero" of 30.5 DN and a gain of 100 e/DN. * The entrance filter failure of 13-Nov-92 eliminated the capability of taking optical images, so the optical transmission is not available after Nov-92. It also caused an increase in the dark current signal, however some of the increase shown here is an increase in the readout noise and is not a function of exposure duration. Page 6 PERSONNEL TRAVEL SXT Foreign Travel between 1-JUL-01 and 31-JUL-01 BARTUS 18-JUL-01 31-JUL-01 * 14 (total of 14 days) HUDSON 20-JUL-01 30-JUL-01 11 (total of 11 days) MCKENZIE 1-JUL-01 * 10-JUL-01 10 (total of 10 days) TAKEDA 1-JUL-01 * 31-JUL-01 * 31 (total of 31 days) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Grand Total of 66 days for 4 people NOTE: The "*" signifies travel that actually ends after 31-JUL-01 SXT Foreign Travel between 1-AUG-01 and 31-AUG-01 BARTUS 1-AUG-01 * 31-AUG-01 * 31 (total of 31 days) TAKEDA 1-AUG-01 * 31-AUG-01 * 31 (total of 31 days) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Grand Total of 62 days for 2 people NOTE: The "*" signifies travel that actually ends after 31-AUG-01 Respectfully submitted, Thomas R. Metcalf Frank Friedlaender Page 7 8 ============================================================= Montana State Univ Activity Report for June 2001 - July 2001 ============================================================= (P. Martens) INTRODUCTION The MSU group carried out SXT operations, data analysis, graduate and undergraduate research, participated in meetings, and performed outreach activities. Highlights of this period were the arrival of Jun Sato at MSU, the birth of Pachyderm, our new 2.1Tb server designed to hold the Yohkoh archive, Acton's presentation for the Yohkoh/SXT Senior Review 2001, and the ongoing preparations for the Yohkoh 10th Anniversary Meeting, in Kona in September. Jun Sato started setting up an online database of solar flares observed by the Yohkoh, including images by SXT and HXT and HXT time profiles. YOHKOH AND SXT OPERATIONS McKenzie spent almost all of June and the first 10 days of July at ISAS for Yohkoh operations. He observed the solar eclipse of 21-Jun, with an unprecedented Sun-moon configuration, with very high cadence images. See http://isass1.solar.isas.ac.jp/sxt_co/010622.html for an excerpt from the movie. MEETINGS Acton participated in the Yohkoh/SXT Senior Review 2001 in Washington, DC. In his opinion, we put together a very good proposal and he is optimistic concerning continued funding for SXT. We'll know the results of the Senior Review by the end of August. Canfield participated in Working Group 1 of the SHINE meeting in Snowmass, which addressed two basic issues, one of which centered on observational evidence for reconnection prior to CMEs. Paper presented: "Preflare Phenomena in Eruptive Flares", by A M Colman, R C Canfield. Acton gave the talk "Ten Years of Soft X-ray Irradiance Measurements by YOHKOH", at the 3rd Thermospheric/Ionospheric Geospheric Research (TIGER) Symposium on 12 June 2001 in Boulder, Colorado. Page 8 RESEARCH Acton continues to work very hard on attempts to clear up remaining problems with making perfect SXT Science Composites (SSC) for the whole mission. The big problem remains perfect straylight correction. He hopes to have a final product to announce and distribute on CD by the time of the Kona meeting. Canfield and MSU undergraduate Zachary Blehm supervised two American Indian Research Opportunities high school students during July. These students digitized Mees H-alpha Coronagraph movies and wrote them to CD-R. This project is now complete through May 14, 2001. Building upon earlier work with recent MSU graduate Angela Colman, Canfield supervised REU student Derek Lamb (Drake University), who studied two regions for periods of several days prior to eruptive events. Both regions shows the blue-shift- event signature days in advance, at rates comparable to those which obtained just a few hours in advance. Martens started working with graduate students Jonathan Cirtain on loop DEMs, and Becca McMullen on TRACE temperature determinations. He also continues working with Dana Longcope and REU student Annemarie Cumberledge on magnetic "nulls" in the solar corona. The puzzling result is that so far we have found null "nulls" in extrapolations of real magnetograms, while "nulls" are easily produced in analytical examples that look a lot like real magnetograms. What is going on here? McKenzie renewed his search for more supra-arcade downflow (SAD) events, focusing on flares of the last 18 months. He found many new flares with SADs; the updated list of SAD flares at http://solar.physics.montana.edu/mckenzie/LDE/LDE_flow_events.html now holds 33 flares. Speeds are up to 500 km/sec, most are slower. In June and July he worked with REU student Emily Barrentine, an undergrad from Bryn Mawr. They made temperature histories of a cusped loop (19-oct-2000) and a filament channel brightening associated with a flare (22-Jan-2000). SERVICE AND OUTREACH Martens and Acton, with the invaluable help of LOC members McMullen, Noonan, and Halvarson, made great progress in the organization of the Yohkoh 10th Anniversary Meeting. Martens submitted a brief NSF proposal to support the attendance of a number of US graduate students, put together the scientific program (on-line by now), distributed financial aid to more than 25 participants, and with the indispensable help of Mark Weber got a LaTex template proceedings paper online. McKenzie and Martens also started preparation for a NASA press release for Yohkoh's 10th Anniversary, together with NASA professionals Bill Page 9 Steigerwald and Rachel Weintraub. The release, with ample visual material, is planned for between the launch anniversary and the Y10 meeting, and will be coordinated with the Japanese and British. McKenzie also worked with David Alexander and Michelle Larson on a handout poster for the Yohkoh 10th Anniversary. Despite a few last minutes hiccups on the part of Intel, Davey was midwife to the birth of Pachyderm (the name is Acton's idea!). Pachyderm is our new 2.1Tb server designed to hold floating point movie data and provide another complete set of online Yohkoh data. Sato started to make a database of solar flares observed by Yohkoh. This database will include a flare list, images (SXT, HXT) and time profiles. Images can be downloaded as a digital data in fits format. As a first step, Sato determined a fits format of the HXT image data and then HXT fits files of all Yohkoh flares up to 2001/06. McKenzie updated and maintained the SXT website, made updates to the YPOP web site, contributed to several Nuggets, and with folks from the Museum of the Rockies, gave star parties and sidewalk solar observing to 800-1000 people in Yellowstone National Park. Canfield reformatted the SXT Chief Observer's weekly reports at http://solar.physics.montana.edu/nuggets/ and mirror sites at Lockheed, ISAS, and MSSL. He organized a seminar for summer REU students and gave them a talk on current solar physics. Martens refereed a really neat ApJ Letter while on vacation, and updated the online MSU Solar Group Publications list. He also recruited a new SXT graduate student while at the AGU in Boston. The new student already has a Masters in Science and will arrive in January. PUBLICATIONS Sato revised and resubmitted the paper "Observation of the coronal hard X-ray sources of the 1998 April 23 Flare" to ApJ Martens edited the galley proofs for "Origin and Evolution of Filament Prominence Systems" for ApJ. The paper "Soft X-ray Luminosity and Photospheric Magnetic Field in Quiet Sun" by A.A. Pevtsov and L. W. Acton appeared in ApJ, 554, 416-423 (2001). Page 10 ========================================================= Univ of Hawaii Activity Report for June 2001 - July 2001 ========================================================= (J. Li) Our activities included support of Yohkoh operations and data analysis at ISAS, coordinated ground-based data acquisition (including designated Yohkoh campaigns) at Mees, collaborative analysis of Yohkoh/Mees data, and preparation of manuscripts. Operational support for SXT was provided by G. Nitta at Mees and LaBonte and Li in Manoa. Our colleagues, Canfield at Montana State University, Wuelser and Metcalf at Lockheed, and Hudson at Solar Physics Research Corporation aided in advice and oversight of Mees operations. Weather at Haleakala has been unusually good during June and July. The observations were carried for 70% scheduled days in June and 89% in July. The total coverage was limited by the number of vacations and holidays. The major sunspot group during the two month period was NOAA 9503 and its surrounding sunspot groups. Mees has covered the sunspot from June 18 to June 25. Started from July 25, Mees conducted a campaign observation with BBSO for H-alpha flare impact polarization. By the time when writing, the campaign is still carried on. Dr. Leka visited IfA in June for a week. She worked with Labonte for IVM data reduction. She is using IVM magnetograms to study the flare versus non-flare magnetic field structures. Dr. Zhang, visitor to IfA/Mees from Huairou Solar Observatory in Beijing, prepared a manuscript of "Analysis of Vector Magnetic Field in Solar Active Regions by Huairou, Mees and Mitaka Vector Magnetographs". The paper is as the result of the discussion on magnetic azimuth among different magnetograms from different observatories during his visit in April. The manuscript is been revised by Li and LaBonte for publication. Li continued to work on the correlation between large-scale, long- lived coronal features and sunspot clusters in the photosphere. The coronal data were mainly taken by SXT/Yohkoh. The main result in this work is that the persistent large-scale coronal structures were found to be sustained by a non-contemporaneous sunspot clusters in the photosphere. The paper is being prepared and is expected to be submitted to ApJ within a few days. Page 11 ========================================================= Stanford Univ Activity Report for June 2001 - July 2001 ========================================================= (P. Sturrock) Peter Sturrock and Mark Weber assisted Loren Acton in the preparation for the Yohkoh Senior Review presentation. They contributed some recent work comparing Yohkoh/SXT data with GALLEX/GNO neutrino data and solar interior rotation rates from SOHO/MDI. There appears to be good evidence (confidence level > 99%) that the solar neutrino flux, as measured by the GALLEX-GNO experiment, and the low-latitude SXT flux exhibit the same periodicity with a frequency of 13.68 cycles per year, or a period of 26.9 days. This is very close to the periodicity at 27.03 days found in Ulysses solar-wind data by Neugebauer et al. [J.G.R. 105, 2315]. This result, if confirmed, may answer the long-standing puzzle of why the solar corona exhibits rigid rotation. Mark has also revisited the SXT database for the purpose of extending his dissertation work on solar rotation rates. There is now a complete cycle's worth of data that can be analyzed. The longer time base allows finer frequency analysis and a better look at effects that correlate with the solar cycle. Initially, we will use a sample rate of about one data-point per day, but we will then redo the analysis using the full SXT database of movie images. Manipulation of the latitude bins may allow various effects in the time-series to be understood more clearly. We have re-analyzed SXT data for the equatorial region, using techniques designed to remove the solar-cycle trend, and to remove the effects of transient emission. When we do this, we find that we can identify not only the fundamental (about 13.6 cpy, or about 26.86 days), but also a number of harmonics (up to 8 harmonics). This suggests that the X-ray emission is modulated by structures that are surprisingly long-lived, and surprisingly sharply localized in longitude. We plan to investigate this further, using the extended data-base that Mark is preparing. Our comparison of spectra derived from SXT and neutrino time series has led us to seek a statistic that gives a useful representation of the degree of correlation of the spectra of two time series. We have derived a statistic G of which the dominant term is 2*sqrt(S1*S2), where S1 and S2 are the powers (as functions of frequency) of the two time series. This statistic is distributed in the same way as the power of each time series, for which exp(-S) is the probability of getting power S or more. Hence we may compare G directly with the separate power series to determine whether (and how much) the combined data leads to stronger evidence for a particular periodicity. Mark has continued with his study of twisted flux-tubes in a spherical geometry. The goal is to investigate whether force-free field solutions can be constructed with magnetic energy greater than the Aly-Sturrock limit. A significant fraction of the energy is located along the axis of the tube; however, the indicated amount of twist is so high that the Page 12 twist length scale is on the order of the grid resolution for the computation. This may cause difficulties in the calculation of the energy density at tube center. Fortunately, it may be possible to describe the problematic region with an analytical solution. In addition to research, Mark contributed to the Yohkoh 10th Anniversary Meeting by preparing a LaTeX template for manuscript submissions. ======================================================================= Solar Physics Research Corp. Activity Report for June 2001 - July 2001 ======================================================================= (Karen L. Harvey and Hugh S. Hudson) KAREN L. HARVEY: Activities for June and July: (1) In collaboration with Terry Forbes, continued the analysis of the 18 December 1998 HAO/CHIP He I 10830 data to measure the magnetic flux as a function of time within an area bounded by the flare ribbons and the polarity inversion separating them and within the associated transient coronal holes. The evolution and location of the flare ribbons and coronal holes are being compared with SXT, EIT, and H-alpha data for this event. The objective of this study is to determine the reconnection rate of a flare. The measurements were made by mapping the flare and coronal hole boundaries one the single NSO/KP full-disk magnetogram for 18 December, assuming that the photospheric field is radial and does not change over the observed during of the flare. We find that the combined magnetic flux in the flare ribbon and transient coronal hole in the positive flux is equal to that in the unsigned negative polarity, although individually the magnetic flux in the two flare ribbons and in the two coronal holes is not balanced. EIT images (no SXT observations were made until late in the flare) were used to estimate the position of the loop footpoints. Overlaying their position on the He I 10830 flare ribbon indicates that actual eastern edge of the flare and the western edge of the coronal hole. are obscured by overlying dark He I 10830 post-flare loops. We are now examining the intensity structure of the coronal holes and how this relates to the dimmings seen in the EIT coronal and chromospheric images. (2) Continuing with a comparison of the coronal holes identified in NSO/KP He I 10830 rotation maps and with corresponding Yohkoh/SXT rotation maps to determine if the structures identified as coronal holes in He I 10830 all are associated with low emission areas. Plans for August and September: Continued analysis (1) with T. Forbes of the reconnection rate of Page 13 magnetic fields during long-duration arcade events/He I 10830 2-ribbon flares and comparison of the transient coronal holes with X-ray/EUV dimmings; (2) of the association of coronal holes observed in He I 10830 spectroheliograms and the SXT full-frame and synoptic images; this includes isolated, non-polar coronal holes, as well as the transient coronal holes; of particular interest is the formation of coronal holes and of polar extensions; (3) of collected XBP data, looking at the association and timing of XBP with magnetic bipole evolution, and with K. Strong their cycle variation. HUGH S. HUDSON Activities for June and July: Yohkoh made special observations during the eclipse on June 21. The three SXT observers at ISAS then had their hands full in planning this remarkable event, which is anticipated and briefly described in the nuggets for June 8, 15, and 22. The observations went well and we captured a "stillstand" with the limb of the Moon just above the west limb of the Sun, with SXT in PFI-dominant mode. At the time of limb passage, the lunar limb was only moving 0.3-0.4 arcsec/sec, so our sample interval of 2 sec gave us TRACE-like resolution for limb location. Otherwise, research centered on preparation for CESRA, the European radio astronomers's annual meeting, at which I presented work on waves (with Khan) and on the April 18 moving hard X-ray source. Work on coronal holes (with Kahler) also continued. Plans for August and September: I am thinking of extending the work on coronal holes begun by Kahler. We have essentially failed to discover signatures of CH boundary adjustment in the SXT data, which basically shows the CHs stolidly plodding along and ignoring any opportunity to do something sudden. The question immediately arises: is this because the boundary adjustment takes place remotely high in the corona, so that transient effects are dampened before SXT can see them? Or is the adjustment controlled in detail in the lower atmosphere, but in such a way (e.g. forced reconnection) so as not to have much of a signature? This is a worthwhile possible direction in which to proceed. PUBLICATIONS Papers Accepted: "Solar Constant": H. S. Hudson, article for the McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology, 9th Edition (2001). "The Origin and Development of Transient Coronal Holes": S. W. Kahler and H. S. Hudson, JGR (2001). Page 14 Papers Submitted: "Hard X-radiation from a Fast Coronal Ejection": H. S. Hudson, T. Kosugi, N. V. Nitta, and M. Shimojo, ApJ Letters (2001). TAKEDA AKI: Activities for June and July: I worked for three full weeks (+ 2 days in w31) in total as an SXT_CO. week 23 (4-Jun through 10-Jun): SXT_CO week 28 (9-Jul through 15-Jul): SXT_CO week 29 (16-Jul through 22-Jul): SXT_CO week 31 (30-Jul through 5-Aug): SXT_CO In connection with the total solar eclipse occurred on 21 June, I studied a series of SXT images taken -1.25, -1.0, -0.75, -0.5, and -0.25 rotations before eclipse day, and figured out the expected brightness of the innermost corona (see the following science nugget). http://isass1.solar.isas.ac.jp/sxt_co/010608.html "Predicting the coronal structure during the upcoming total solar eclipse" The purpose of this study was providing information to the eclipse observers including the Meisei University expeditionary team at Zambia. On the other hand, SXT COs (D. McKenzie, H. Hudson, and A. Takeda) prepared a special table and observed the eclipse. We observed two targets; one was the same region as the Meisei University team observed and the other was around the stillstand point where the sun and the moon were apart and had contact again within a short time (see the following URL). http://isass1.solar.isas.ac.jp/sxt_co/010622.html "How smooth is the Sun?" In early July, a pair of active regions NOAA 9515 and 9513 made their disk passage at a latitude of nearly 50 degrees in southern hemisphere. They are so far the most southern active regions in this cycle 23, and thus reported in the following page. http://isass1.solar.isas.ac.jp/sxt_co/010706.html "Breaking records -- It's all about latitude!" During week 29 (16-23 July), we participated in two campaigns; JOP 100 lead by J. Brosius and a CDS campaign lead by K. Hori. We applied the ARS2 pointing to fix our FOV on regions they specified. As for the CDS campaign, I cooperated with the campaign leader closely and supported the daily selection of the target, a foot point of the interconnecting loops. Page 15 Public Relations: I received a request from Tet. Watanabe to prepare some movies showing highlights of the SXT observations, for the British Council Tokyo, one of the sponsors of our project. Collaborating with G. Slater, S. Freeland, and S. Kubo, I submitted several movies to T. Watanabe. http://isass1.solar.isas.ac.jp/~takeda/image_gallery.html With a help of J. Khan on the captions, the movies will have been appearing on their web page in the near future. JANOS BARTUS Activities for June and July: I setup a secured ADSL connection from my apartment. Now I have a very reliable and fast connection to the ISAS computers so I can extend my working hours and check the system from home too. Several software packages were updated on isass0/isass1 because of their enhancements, bug fixes, or security reasons. TRACE and DARTS account managements: the maintenance scripts were considerably improved. I prepared a BASH script environment to easily exchange isass0 to isass1 if isass1 fails. In this project I could significantly develop my scripting talents. From the end of June I spent 3 weeks at Lockheed-Martin Solar and Astrophysical Laboratory, Palo Alto. Most of the time were used to build up a video server, which would provide a real time SXT movie analysis facility as replacement of the obsolete video laser disks. The core of the system are two special video cards designed for professional video editing. To make the system work properly we had to overcome several difficulties related to both hardware and software components (like fighting windows 2000 instability, looking for the latest drivers, BIOS updates, choosing the proper storage media etc.). Also becoming acquainted with a new software and hardware environment was a time consuming task. Finally we managed to create a movie where several years of SXT data could be quickly scrolled along. The output could be seen on the computer and on the TV monitor simultaneously. Alternatively the TV output could have been immediately recorded to video tape too. The system still needs much work. Besides the SXT data we would like to include movies from other companion observations to make the simultaneous real time analysis possible. As far as possible a user friendly graphical interface will be developed specialized for the needs of solar data analysis. We would like to present our server at the Yohkoh 10th anniversary meeting in September. The video cards were taken to Japan with me and I installed them in my home desktop computer so that I can do the further developments until the final server PC is Page 16 purchased. Plans for August and September: The most important thing is to improve the video server and possibly making an easy to use user interface for the SXT analysis. Theoretically this video system offers a very simple way to make DVD movies. Hopefully we are able to prepare DVD movies soon from arbitrary video files. We are attending the Hawaii meeting to present this new video project. =================================================================== University of California Activity Report for June 2001 - July 2001 =================================================================== (G. Fisher) Dr. McTiernan continues his efforts to develop Force-free field extrapolation software, with the purpose of comparing with magnetograms and SXT data. The SXT data will permit a direct test of the extrapolation code. Dr. McTiernan has re-installed the Yohkoh database on our local machines which was necessitated by a number of recent computer and disk upgrades. Dr. McTiernan is also assisting Dr. Johns-Krull in searching the Yohkoh database for all data which overlaps with H-alpha linear polarization data taken at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). Dr. Johns-Krull has continued his analysis of Big Bear H-alpha linear polarization data and its comparison with Yohkoh SXT and HXT data, concentrating on the writing of the first paper on this experiment which will be submitted to Solar Physics within the next two months. Dr. Johns-Krull also organized a simultaneous flare observing campaign for the end of July involving BBSO, Mees Solar Observatory, and Yohkoh. Several C-class flares were observed and the continuing observations at Mees covered a few M class events as well. With the assistance of Dr. McTiernan, Dr. Johns-Krull has started going back through the Yohkoh database to find all instances of simultaneous SXT and HXT coverage of flares observed in H-alpha linear polarization at BBSO. Page 17 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NASA REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE (IN LIEU OF NASA FORM 1626) --------------------|--------------------------|------------------------------- 1. REPORT NO. | 2. GOVERNMENT | 3. RECIPIENT'S DR-01 | ACCESSION NO. | CATALOG NO. --------------------|--------------------------|------------------------------- 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE | 5. REPORT DATE Monthly progress report - for the month of | 10 August 2001 July 2001 |------------------------------- | 6. PERFORMING ORG | CODE: O/L9-41 -----------------------------------------------|------------------------------- 7. AUTHOR(S) | 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZA- T. R. Metcalf | TION REPORT NO: F. M. Friedlaender | |------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------|10. WORK UNIT NO. 9. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME AND ADDRESS | Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space |------------------------------- Advanced Technology Center, O/L9-41, B/252 |11. CONTRACT OR GRANT NO. 3251 Hanover Street, Palo Alto Ca. 94304 | NAS8 - 00119 -----------------------------------------------|------------------------------- 12. SPONSORING AGENCY NAME AND ADDRESS |13. TYPE OF REPORT AND Marshall Space Flight Center (Explorer Program)| PERIOD COVERED Huntsville Alabama 35812 | Progress report for the month Contact: Larry Hill | of July 2001 |------------------------------- |14. SPONSORING AGENCY | CODE MSFC / AP32 -----------------------------------------------|------------------------------- 15. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16. ABSTRACT The SOLAR-A Mission is a program of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the Japanese agency for scientific space activity. The SOLAR-A satellite was launched on August 30, 1991, to study high energy phenomena in solar flares. As an international cooperative agreement, Lockheed, under NASA contract, is providing a scientific investigation and has prepared the Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT), one of the two primary experiments of the mission. --------------------------------------|---------------------------------------- 17. KEY WORDS (SUGGESTED BY | 18. DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT AUTHOR(S)) Solar-A, X-ray, CCD, | Space Science, Solar Physics ------------------------|-------------|----------|-----------------|----------- 19. SECURITY CLASSIF. | 20. SECURITY CLASSIF. | 21. NO OF PAGES |22. PRICE (OF THIS REPORT) | (OF THIS PAGE) | | None | None | 17 | ------------------------|------------------------|-----------------|-----------