REPORT FROM ISAS
                        12-Apr-94 to 25-Apr-94
                              L. W. Acton

Up at 4 a.m. this morning to look at SXT images from the first Yohkoh
pass to help M. Bruner pick a target for the slit of her rocket
spectrograph.  D. Alexander has no sympathy because he has been up all
night on this project.  The SXT data reveal that AR7704 has formed some
nice bright x-ray loops in an orientation well placed for the rocket
experiment--dictating a change in observing target from AR7705.  After a
flurry of telephone calls between D-toh and White Sands Missile Range
the decision is made and revised SXT observing parameters are uplinked a
few minutes before the rocket launch.  The rocket apparently flew and
observed successfully (the film has yet to be developed) and the SXT
data are superb.  What a great morning!

This past week I've had the pleasure of visiting Kyoto University, Hida
Observatory and the Hiraiso Solar-Terrestrial Research Center.  At
Kyoto/Hida Kurokawa san and colleagues explained the work being done by
a number of doctoral students on solar physics.  It heartening to see
the vitalizing effect that Yohkoh has had upon the interest of these
young people in solar studies. 

>From Hida, high in the Japanese Alps, to Hiraiso on the shore of the
Pacific Ocean is a marked contrast in every way.  Even their seasons of
best observing conditions are out of phase.  The charter of Hiraiso is
space forecasting but there is a strong interest and growing program of
solar research.  Akioka san has accomplished a tremendous amount in a
short time with his solar observatory and is moving rapidly to develop a
magnetographic capability.  Soon the Hiraiso H-alpha data will be
available on-line via FTP.

Klimchuk has showed up for a 12 day visit--working hard on a paper on
coronal loop physics.  He and student Lisa Porter are doing Monte Carlo
simulations of SXT temperature determinations.  This should greatly
improve the understanding of what our filter ratio temperatures really
mean and is long overdue.  I'm leaning on Jim to write the results up as
an SXT Calibration Note. 

LaBonte has completed the deconvolution of the SXT point spread function
from his "good statistics" summed image of post flare loops at the limb. 
The sharpened image is MOST impressive.  I'm so glad to see our hard-won
pre-launch calibration at last put to such a use--an important advance. 

Greg Slater has restored our movie making capability after the setback
suffered in our operating system "upgrade." I will spend the next few
days using this to prepare a video for the AGU.  Thanks, Greg! 

This will be my last report from ISAS until June.  I leave for the USA
next Sunday.  David Alexander now takes over as SXT Chief Observer.