SXT Status Report September 26 - October 8, 2000 (Weeks 40-41) B. Handy, H. Hudson, N. Nitta, A. Takeda SUMMARY Yohkoh SXT is working fine. We've had some interesting observations these two weeks, including a (rare) non-CME X-class flare. This event came from AR 9169, which peaked out at an amazing 2160 millionths (sunspot area) but didn't make many flares until (of course) it was very near and then behind the W limb. OBSERVING CAMPAIGNS The main campaign coordination has been around JOP 104, SUMER observations of jets. Yohkoh has not been able to help much because of the pointing requirements. Please see our webpages for more details about campaigns past and future: http://isass1.solar.isas.ac.jp/sxt_co/sxt_catalog.html http://isass1.solar.isas.ac.jp/sxt_co/sxt_future.html SXT INSTRUMENT STATUS AND CALIBRATION ACTIVITIES Normal pointing updates September 25, October 6. No problems of any technical sort. TELEMETRY DOWNLINKS Week Wallops Goldstone Canberra Madrid NASA ISAS 40 30 6 1 5 42 30 41 26 2 1 0 29 29 42 23 2 1 0 26 33 The NASA contributions are much smaller during weeks 41 and 42 than they have been (or should be - should be about 6x7 = 42). Part of this is due to Shuttle operations. For the remainder of the year we are again getting access to Santiago downlinks, which may help. Kagoshima should average 6*5+2 = 32, so we're now doing pretty well on this score. SXT OBSERVING SEQUENCE TABLES ------------------------------------------------- JST Day UT Date & Time Pass Table ID ================================================= Monday PM 25-Sep-00 06:43 1 000925 P1 ARS2 JOP104 Monday PM 25-Sep-00 11:49 4 000925 P4 ARS1 DIF Tuesday PM 26-Sep-00 11:55 4 000926 P4 ARS1 DARK Wednesday PM 27-Sep-00 05:15 1 000927 P1 ARS2 JOP104 Wednesday PM 27-Sep-00 10:20 4 000927 P4 ARS1 STD Friday PM 29-Sep-00 05:27 1 000929 P1 ARS1 STD Saturday PM 30-Sep-00 10:40 4 000930 P4 ARS1 STD Monday PM 2-Oct-00 07:29 3 001002 P3 ARS1 DIF Tuesday PM 3-Oct-00 05:53 3 001003 P3 ARS1 STD Wednesday AM 4-Oct-00 02:37 1 001004 P1 ARS1 DARK Wednesday PM 4-Oct-00 07:42 4 001004 P4 ARS1 STD Thursday PM 5-Oct-00 06:07 3 001005 P3 ARS1 STD Friday PM 6-Oct-00 04:31 3 001006 P3 ARS1 STD Saturday PM 7-Oct-00 02:56 2 001007 P2 ARS1 STD Data reformatting is complete through 16-sep-00 (week 00_38). SCIENCE ISAS activities: Several of the SXT people went to the S-RAMP meeting in Sapporo, at least for portions of it. Here the main subjects were eruptive flares, so it was sort of ironic that a major non-CME flare happened during the meeting - well, the day before (see the nugget for October 6). There has been continued practical interest in the scattering corrections, leading various people (including T. Kosugi, normally known for HXT but here lending a hand with radio astronomy techniques applied to SXT). Observing sequences: The flare sequence tables continue with the long/short half/full overexposed/normal sequences that we hope will lead to a breakthrough in our ability to do SXT scattered-light corrections and make temperature maps in faint regions near bright ones. We have also adopted, at least temporarily, our "rapid" movie sequences at half resolution - sets of six deep exposures with 5" pixels at two-minute intervals. Seminars: September 28: "Fast Imaging Spectroscopy" (B. Handy, MSU) - a description of a proposed new-generation 'overlappograph,' for a rocket flight, leading to an entirely new capability for spectroscopic imaging. Science nuggets: September 22: "X pattern on the Sun" - a rather clear example of a quadrupolar configuration of coronal structure, in which the SXT images strongly suggest a change of connectivity. Since the corresponding EIT images don't show it this clearly - was there heating involved? September 29: "Shrinking X-ray Loops" - no question about it, a well-defined loop structure clearly shrank slowly, reminding us of an earlier study by Jingxiu Wang when he visited ISAS. October 6: "A Confined X-Class Flare" - there was an ejection, but so evanescent that it did not make it outside the FR field of view, and resulted in negligible meter-wave emission and no CME. Generally X-class flares and CMEs go hand in hand, so this is one of those interesting rare exceptions. Ron Moore, please take note. The full list of nuggets is kept on http://isass1.solar.isas.ac.jp/sxt_co/index.html and the current week's nugget also normally resides on http://isass1.solar.isas.ac.jp/sxt_co/SXTweekly.html PERSONNEL Nitta departed. McKenzie was spotted to the north. Gopalswamy and Schmieder visited. TOHBANS (spacecraft operators) Tohbans for week 40 SSOC: M.Yamaguchi, M.Sawa KSC: H.Tonooka, H.Sekiguchi SXT_CO: N. Nitta, H. Hudson, A. Takeda SXT_SW: - Tohbans for week 41 SSOC: S.Nagata(2-4), T.Watanabe(5,7,9), H.Hudson(6) KSC: H.Sekiguchi, H.Adachi SXT_CO: A.Takeda, H.Hudson SXT_SW: -