SXT Status Report October 9 - 22, 2000 (Weeks 42-43) A. Takeda, D. McKenzie SUMMARY Solar activity was generally low these weeks, but we observed 4 M-class flares. 3 of 4 flares were produced in the NOAA9182 (M1.5 on 12th, M1.1 on 14th, and M2.5 on 16th), all near the northwest limb. The last one ocurred on disk, 21st UT, in NOAA 9201 (M3.0). OBSERVING CAMPAIGNS JOP104 continues until 27th Oct., but because of more activity elsewhere and pointing difficulties, we have been a non-participant. B. Schmeider's Flare campaign (JOP131) ended on 15th Oct. 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 Yohkoh lost lock on Canopus on 9 Oct., and the instrument rolled approximately 30 degrees before the trend was stopped. The causes of this anomaly are still being investigated, but the S/C has reacquired Canopus and we are again in fine sunpoint. Normal pointing updates October 20. TELEMETRY DOWNLINKS Week Wallops Santiago Goldstone Canberra Madrid NASA Japan 42 19 0 2 1 0 22 33 43 26 0 0 0 8 34 32 44 33 1 6 0 11 51 35 The NASA contributions are much smaller during week 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 ================================================= Tuesday PM 10-Oct-00 04:55 4 001010 P4 ARS1 DIF Wednesday PM 11-Oct-00 05:02 4 001011 P2 ARS1 SHORT Thursday PM 12-Oct-00 05:08 5 001012 P3 ARS1 STD Friday AM 13-Oct-00 01:50 3 001013 P3 ARS1 STD Saturday AM 14-Oct-00 01:55 3 001014 P3 ARS1 STD Monday AM 16-Oct-00 00:26 3 001016 P3 ARS1 DIF Tuesday AM 17-Oct-00 00:32 3 001017 P3 ARS1 STD Wednesday AM 17-Oct-00 19:32 1 001017 P1 ARS1 DARK* Wednesday AM 18-Oct-00 00:38 4 001018 P4 ARS1 STD Thursday AM 18-Oct-00 23:02 3 001018 P3 ARS1 STD* Friday AM 19-Oct-00 21:25 3 001019 P3 ARS1 STD* Sunday AM 21-Oct-00 19:55 2 001021 P2 ARS1 STD Data reformatting is complete through 23-sep-00 (week 00_43). SCIENCE B. Schmieder visited after the S-RAMP meeting to look at data from TRACE and Yohkoh taken during the Flare Genesis flight. The latest nugget describes the repeated brightening of coronal loops surrounding a filament channel, as observed in EUV and soft X-rays in January 2000. 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 modified, our "rapid" movie sequences at half resolution - sets of four deep exposures with 5" pixels at two-minute intervals. We increased the frequency of this part in FFI/QT/H sequence, and we thereby decrease the frequency of super-long exposure images which were recently too much saturated. Seminars: No seminars these week, but instead we had a small meeting in the D-toh coffee room for general informal discussion based on presentations people had at S-RAMP or the Astronomical Society meeting. Volunteers were Schmieder, Glover, and Hudson. Science nuggets: October 13: "Lighting up a Filament Channel" - A nice M-class solar flare occurred in the balloon's target active region. A review of the Yohkoh SXT movie for a few days around this flare showed something interesting: the flare apparently caused a brightening to spread along the length of the filament channel.Moreover this transient brightening, or quite similar ones, occurred half a dozen times in the same location while it was visible on the solar disk, including a pair of brightening events that occurred before the M flare. October 20: "Rigid Rotation of a Coronal Hole Channel" - A beautiful coronal hole channel appeared and went behind the limb since 9 through 18th Oct. It reminds us of the famous "Italian Peninsula" observed with Skylab in 1970s. The evolution during the rotation is reported compared with its previous rotation. 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 No changes. TOHBANS (spacecraft operators) Tohbans for week 42 SSOC: A. Glover, R. Kano KSC: H. Adachi, T. Shimizu SXT_CO: A. Takeda, D. McKenzie SXT_SW: - Tohbans for week 43 SSOC: J. Khan, H. Hara KSC: S.Shimizu, M. Kubo SXT_CO: A.Takeda, D. McKenzie SXT_SW: -