REPORT FROM ISAS
                          6-May-94 to 17-May-94
                              D. Alexander


This week was a week of mixed fortune.  After all our hard work in
preparing for the May 10 Eclipse we were thwarted by some big time
bad luck.  Basically, we were hit by an SEU (Single Event Upset) 
which is another TLA (Three Letter Acronym) for a CRE (Cosmic Ray
Event).  This caused an SXT error which meant we were unable to 
upload the appropriate SXT tables.  None of our planned experiments
succeeded, although we did get a couple of eclipse images at around
14:10 UT as well as some coronal images round the time of the San Diego 
eclipse observations.  The BCS,unfortunately, did not fair any better
since the count rate was very low.  In addition an OP error resulted
in the overwriting of some of the BCS data.  All in all it was a valuable, 
if disappointing, experience and if the Sun complies we will try again 
in November.

This week sees the start of the Chromospheric Ejection Campaign with
Brigitte Schmieder of Meudon and collaborators.  There is currently an
interesting active region on the solar disk and this should provide
some good observations over the next week.  This campaign will run until 
June 3.


Giovanni Peres gave a very interesting talk on the 12th.  He is using the
hydro-code of the Palermo loop to compare various heating mechanisms in
flaring loops with the details of the SXT observations.  In particular,
he has been able to reproduce some of the observed spatial variations for 
some simple events.  This approach is potentially quite important since
it allows us to check what physics are appropriate in different types
of flaring loop and to provide possible diagnostic tests for the heating
of these loops.

Marilyn Bruner has been working hard on the analysis of her rocket data,
both the recent flight and the '92 flight.  In preparation for the upcoming
AGU meeting, Marilyn has produced a coaligned data set which includes SXT,
CIV, Ly-alpha together with UV continuum and La Palma data (H-alpha, H-alpha
wing, visible continuum and magnetogram).  The results of this will be 
reported in Baltimore.  The recent rocket flight has yielded cleaner spectra
than the '92 flight and sveral good images of the Sun at a number of 
wavelengths.  In particular, there are good UV spectra as well as some EUV
lines, good 171A images (essentially FeIX) which provides data at temperatures
intermediate between SXT and CIV data.  There are excellent Ly-alpha images
showing many prominences at the limb and these are being compared with SXT
Full Frame Images.

Hugh Hudson, Greg Slater and I have been looking at the Polar Crown event
which occurred on April 14 this year.  This event is the one which produced a 
large enhancement of the geomagnetic activity at the Earth some days later.  
We are preparing a number of images of this event for use at the IACG meeting, 
to be held here at ISAS at the end of the month, where we hope to discuss the 
general nature of large scale solar structures.  We are particularly interested 
in the long term behaviour of such structures and whether we can determine if the 
large scale magnetic field configuration existed prior to the heating witnessed
by SXT or if the heating was a side effect of the reconfiguration of the
magnetic field.
 

Sarah Matthews and Norman Gray arrive tomorrow from the University of Glasgow.
Under their influence I will probably slip into my native mode of speaking and 
will start to speak even more quickly than I do at present.  Yecannywhackit! 


JOKE OF THE MONTH

   How many solar physicists does it take to change a fuse?

   44, 1 to change the fuse, 1 to switch on the light and 42 to argue about 
   whether the loop reconnected or not.


QUOTE OF THE WEEK

   "If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z 
   that I abominate, it is energy.  It is such a conventional superstition, 
   such parrot gabble"
          Dickens, "Our Mutual Friend"



ERRATA:  In the last report there was a glaring grammatical error. Please
         correct 'by Hugh Hudson and I' to 'by I and Hugh Hudson'.

         In this report please replace 'errata' with 'erratum'.