SXT Status Report September 4 - September 25, 2000 (Weeks 37-39) B. Handy, H. Hudson, N. Nitta, A. Takeda SUMMARY The interesting period without appreciable flaring seems to have passed, and we are now watching a truly huge sunspot group crossing the central meridian. The M-class flares, however, have been coming from AR 9166, another large group near the southwest limb. SXT continued to function well, and SXT supported two joint observing campaigns as well as the ill-fated first flight of the TXI sounding rocket. OBSERVING CAMPAIGNS The TXI rocket flight was September 5. Its SPARCS pointing system did not work, and so no useful data were obtained. Yohkoh and SXT supported JOP 126, on non-thermal coronal dynamics, between September 6 and September 20. On September 15 JOP 104 (SUMER-based) began, and will continue into the next reporting period. 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 update September 11. No problems of any technical sort. TELEMETRY DOWNLINKS Week Wallops Goldstone Canberra Madrid NASA ISAS 37 22 8 1 11 42 28 38 27 6 0 7 40 31 39 30 4 3 4 41 30 40 33 6 1 5 45 30 SXT OBSERVING SEQUENCE TABLES ------------------------------------------------- JST Day UT Date & Time Pass Table ID ================================================= Monday AM 03-Sep-00 22:56 4 000903 P4 ARS1 DARK* Tuesday AM 04-Sep-00 16:15 1 000904 P1 ARS1 DIFF* Tuesday AM 04-Sep-00 19:39 3 000904 P3 ARS2 TXI* Wednesday AM 05-Sep-00 16:21 1 000905 P1 ARS1 TXI* Wednesday AM 05-Sep-00 19:46 3 000905 P3 ARS1 STD* Thursday AM 06-Sep-00 16:28 1 000906 P1 ARS1 JOP126* Friday AM 07-Sep-00 16:36 2 000907 P2 ARS1 JOP126* Saturday AM 08-Sep-00 16:42 2 000908 P2 ARS1 JOP126* Sunday AM 09-Sep-00 16:49 2 000909 P2 ARS1 JOP126* Tuesday AM 11-SEP-00 17:03 4 000911 P4 ARS1 DIF126* Tuesday PM 12-SEP-00 13:46 1 000912 P1 ARS1 DARK Wednesday AM 12-SEP-00 18:52 4 000912 P4 ARS1 JOP126* Wednesday PM 13-SEP-00 13:52 2 000913 P2 ARS1 JOP126 Thursday PM 14-SEP-00 13:59 2 000914 P2 ARS1 JOP104 Friday PM 15-SEP-00 12:24 2 000915 P2 ARS1 JOP104 Saturday PM 16-SEP-00 14:13 3 000916 P3 ARS1 JOP104 Monday PM 18-Sep-00 11:02 1 000918 P1 ARS1 DARK Tuesday AM 18-SEP-00 16:09 4 000918 P4 ARS1 DIF104* Tuesday PM 19-SEP-00 14:33 4 000919 P4 ARS1 JOP104 Wednesday PM 20-SEP-00 14:40 4 000920 P4 ARS1 JOP104 Thursday PM 21-SEP-00 09:40 1 000921 P1 ARS1 STD Thursday PM 21-SEP-00 14:47 4 000921 P4 ARS1 JOP104 Friday PM 22-SEP-00 13:11 4 000922 P4 ARS1 JOP104 Saturday PM 23-SEP-00 13:18 4 000923 P4 ARS1 STD Data reformatting is complete through 2-sep-00 (week 00_32). SCIENCE Observing sequences: SXT has over the last two months been experimenting with a 2x2 flare table, including a McKenzie special deep exposure. This ingenious technique allows us to get large dynamic range, so we are now applying it to get good information about scattering wings. The flare table has been returned to its previous state (8 filter slots, 16-sec nominal cadence) with the addition of a Be overexposure. The general subject of wavelength-dependent scattering wings suddenly seems very important now because of thesis work on SXT temperature maps under way at ISAS in particular. We feel that the 2x2 experiment was quite successful (see the various science nuggets describing individual events, both eruptive and non-eruptive). SXT continues to get rapid FFIs by using a reduced sampling of the short exposures in the composite image pairs. Seminars: September 14: "Informal round-table discussion: the future of X-ray/microwave flare observations" (Kosugi, Nakajima, Nitta, Hudson) September 23: "Quiet Sun Magnetic Fields" (R. Cameron, SUT) Science nuggets: September 8: "Pre-flare, flare, flare ejection" - this nugget shows some of the fruits of running the 2x2 flare table, on an especially nice ejective flare for which Yohkoh got excellent pre-flare observations. September 15: "Hard X-ray ribbons" - the 3rd science nugget devoted to the July 14, 2000 X-class flares, showing hard X-ray imaging that reveals emission all along the lengths of the beatiful ribbon structures this flare produced. 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? 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 and Handy arrived. TOHBANS (spacecraft operators) Tohbans for week 37 SSOC: S. Watari, S. Eto KSC: K. Matsuzaki, T. Tamura SXT_CO: H. Hudson, A. Takeda SXT_SW: - Tohbans for week 38 SSOC: H. Nakajima, H. Hudson KSC: T. Tamura, M. Hagino SXT_CO: N. Nitta, A. Takeda SXT_SW: - Tohbans for week 39 SSOC: H. Kozu, Y. Suematsu KSC: Y. Hanaoka, H. Tonooka SXT_CO: N. Nitta, A. Takeda SXT_SW: -