SXT Status Report September 10 - September 24, 2001 (Weeks 37-38) L. Fletcher, H. Hudson, A. Takeda SOLAR ACTIVITY The trend of solar activity noted in the last report has continued: many M flares but no X flares. In fact, about 50 M-class flares have happened since the memorable August 25, 2001 event, the subject of our science nugget that week because of its exquisite white-light and mm-wave observations. Needless to say, the executive board of the Lack of Major Flares Study Group senses something scientifically interesting here, perhaps related to the large number (15 on 21-Sep) of active regions vying for access to the stored coronal energy. The multiple magnetic connections between these regions may make it impossible for significant energy to build up around any one region. OBSERVING CAMPAIGNS Yohkoh supported observations around JOP146, which aimed at multiple observations of bipolar loops. Although we had a hard time devoting time to this because of the plethora of bright regions, which worries us regarding SXT saturation if the target is faint, nevertheless the main organizers (J. Cirtain and C. Kankelborg of MSU) have pronounced themselves happy already with good data. There were also, as a byproduct, complicated developments in trans-equatorial loops on the E limb. Please see our webpages for 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 normal pointing was adjusted on 22-Sep. The current scheme for Yohkoh attitude control, using the FAQ mode during orbit night and normal operations during orbit day, is working fine. Bartus and Slater achieved success with putting the new movie, in draft form, on a PC equipped with a Matrox card and also on DVDs. This new capability will replace the Sony videodisk system for image review and display at ISAS. The DVDs can be made available for anybody, so we expect that they will be popular. TELEMETRY DOWNLINKS Week Wallops Santiago Goldstone Canberra Madrid NASA Japan 38 30 0 0 2 0 32 26 39 24 1 0 7 4 36 24 Kagoshima should average 6*5+2 = 32 and the NASA target is 7*6 = 42. SXT OBSERVING SEQUENCE TABLES ====================================================================== JST Day UT Date & Time Pass Table ID Monday PM 10-Sep-2001 8:54 3 010910 P3 ARS1 STD Tuesday PM 11-Sep-2001 3:48 1 010911 P1 ARS1 DIFF Tuesday PM 11-Sep-2001 8:52 4 010911 P4 ARS1 146 Wednesday PM 12-Sep-2001 5:27 2 010912 P2 ARS1 DARK Wednesday PM 12-Sep-2001 8:50 4 010912 P4 ARS1 STD Thursday PM 13-Sep-2001 7:26 2 010913 P2 ARS0 J146 Thursday PM 13-Sep-2001 9:08 3 010913 P3 ARS0 J146 Thursday PM 13-Sep-2001 8:49 4 010913 P4 ARS1 STD Friday PM 14-Sep-2001 3:43 1 010914 P1 ARS0 J146 Friday PM 14-Sep-2001 7:16 3 010914 P3 ARS0 J146 Friday PM 14-Sep-2001 8:48 4 010914 P4 ARS1 STD Saturday PM 15-Sep-2001 2:01 1 010915 P1 ARS0 J146 Saturday PM 15-Sep-2001 7:04 4 010915 P4 ARS1 STD Monday PM 17-Sep-2001 5:18 3 010917 P3 ARS1 DARK Wednesday AM 19-Sep-2001 1:51 2(+) 010919 P1 ARS0 DIFF Thursday AM 20-Sep-2001 0:07 1 010920 P1 ARSO STD Friday AM 21-Sep-2001 0:05 1 010921 P1 ARS0 STD Saturday AM 22-Sep-2001 2:44 3 010922 P3 ARS1 STD* + Note that all table uploads on Tuesday were cancelled because of the ubiquitous flare mode. -------------------------------------------------------------- Data reformatting is complete through August 18, week 33 of 2001. OBSERVING SEQUENCES: The short exposures of the movie pairs were increased again. During the period of decreased exposure times the Al.1 composites did not appear, presumably because of a threshold set in the SFD algorithm. SCIENCE NUGGETS: September 14: "Cusps within cusps" reported on the tendency for soft X-ray cusp features sometimes to have embedded cusps. These give the appearance of a geometrical impossibility for a 2D field model. September 21: "One week in the life of a sigmoid," a record of the amazingly successful sigmoid observational campaign of Whole Sun Month 3 in August, 1999 (authorship including guest author S. Gibson). The full list of recent 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 For the complete nugget archive, see one of the following sites. http://isass1.solar.isas.ac.jp/sxt_co/index.html SEMINARS: B. Somov, "Collisionless 3D Reconnection in the Structure and Dynamics of Solar Active Regions" (Boris Somov has now arrived at ISAS for a one-year stay). PERSONNEL: L. Fletcher arrived; G. Slater departed; visitor F. Farnik arrived. TOHBANS (spacecraft operators) for week 37: SSOC Tohbans : H.S.Hudson & S.Kubo KSC Tohbans : K.Fujiki & J.Kiyohara SXT_CO: L. Fletcher SXT_SW: J. Bartus, G. Slater TOHBANS (spacecraft operators) for week 38 SSOC Tohbans : Y. Sakamoto & T. Sekii KSC Tohbans : J. Kiyohara & Tamura SXT_CO: L. Fletcher, H.Hudson SXT_SW: J. Bartus, G. Slater