SOHO SPWG Minutes



Thursday, April 20, 2000

1. Review of action items

None.

2. Boundary conditions

* Upcoming Maneuvers/spacecraft activities - None foreseen * MDI Continuous 26 Mar - 9 July (Actual continuous starts May 22) HiRes program starting Apr 24 for 2 weeks. Full Disk program from May 9 (few exceptions). Please see separate note in section 8. * Submode changes Change to submode 5 at ~13 UT on May 2 Change to submode 6 when SUMER stops observing.

3. JOPs status

* Updated JOPs: - JOP038 Diagnostic of Coronal Bright Points, EIT/MDI/SUMER/CDS/TRACE/THEMIS, Contact: Karine Bocchialini THEMIS section added. EIT cannot run their program during times specified (7-9 UT) (NRT/personnel constraints). Also, TRACE is better suited to do subfield imaging/high cadence observations. - JOP104 Doppler Shifts in X-ray Jets, SUMER/CDS/EIT/TRACE/HESSI/Yohkoh/MICA/HASTA, Contact: Davina Innes/Werner Curdt UVCS is interested in participating and may add a part. Kuen Ko will contact Werner Curdt. * New JOPs: - JOP122 Micro-scale heating blocks of the solar atmosphere, CDS/EIT/MDI/SUMER/VLA/TRACE/Yohkoh, Contact: R. Erdelyi, R. Willson, J.G. Doyle MDI HiRes is *requested* - not *required* as currently stated? EIT portion not acceptable - "High Cadence" is not clearly specified, they could do 1hr max, given a very good justification (otherwise, TRACE should do it). TRACE has received a request for 1600 Angstrom images - not what's in the JOP description. Clarification needed. - JOP123 Narrow band photometry of EUV emission lines, CDS/EIT/MDI/TXI(rocket)/TRACE/Yohkoh, Contact: E. DeLuca EIT support with modified program (J. Newmark working on it). CDS will do a GIS/NIS combination, to be selected by A. Fludra. - JOP124 Eruptive filament in active region, SUMER/CDS/EIT/THEMIS, Contact: Stephane Regnier Some discussion that MDI/TRACE parts could be added for future runs. TRACE very interested in filament studies.

4. Priorities for the coming month (Weeks 18-22)

a) Joint observing plans * Apr 23-May 14 JOP120 Formation and Evolution of a Sigmoidal AR, CDS/EIT/LASCO/MDI/UVCS/TRACE/Yohkoh/Mees, 1700-2300 UT POC: Alexi Glover, Target: Sigmoidal AR TRACE must finish Quiet Sun study prior to joining, note competition with JOP118. UVCS limited support May 4-14 (special observations...) MDI cannot support in Full Disk mode until May 9 * May 3-5 JOP017/107 Prominence Studies, SUMER/CDS/EIT/MDI/TRACE/THEMIS/Tenerife/Yohkoh, POC: Brigitte Schmieder (THEMIS), P Heinzel (MEDOC) TRACE doesn't have it on the calendar.(not contacted). EIT have not been contacted, and cannot support. MDI cannot support in Full Disk mode until May 9 (synoptic only) Time of day to be confirmed. For reference, Tenerife daytime is approximately 7-16 UT * May 6-8 JOP122 Micro-scale heating blocks of the solar atmosphere CDS/EIT/TRACE/Yohkoh/VLA, 16:30-21:30 UT, POC:R. Willson,Robert Erdelyi(MEDOC),Gerry Doyle(MEDOC) TRACE Quiet Sun study may be in conflict. Karel Schrijver will try to coordinate (same target?). MDI has data gaps during weekend. EIT - see note under "JOPs Status" * May 2-5 JOP118 The Temperature Range of the Sunspot 3-minute Oscillations, CDS/SUMER/TRACE/MDI, may also include JOP075 program?, POC: Terje Fredvik (MEDOC), Olav Kjeldseth-Moe. TRACE lists it as Target Of Opportunity May 2 - 21, but La Palma collaboration starts 15. Quiet Sun study must be finished before starting. EIT support only during first week (Tues-Friday), and there's a conflict with JOP122. Note also LASCO Mercury Passage requiring 2hr NRT (May 7-21). May 2-5 may be possible w/both TRACE & EIT MDI will be in HiRes mode (before May 9). * May 10-12 JOP038 Diagnostic of Coronal Bright Points, EIT/MDI/SUMER/CDS/TRACE/THEMIS, ~07:00-09:00 UT, POC: Karine Bocchialini (MEDOC) EIT cannot support in this time frame (dates & times). TRACE best effort only. MDI cannot support in HiRes mode after May 9. * May 1-21 JOP040 Transition Region Network Thickness, SUMER/CDS/EIT/MDI/TRACE, Target: Equatorial C.H. TRACE & EIT synoptics only. POC: Spiros Patsourakos (MEDOC) TRACE synoptics is not what's in the JOP description, and the TRACE part of the JOP description cannot be performed as written. Spiros should contact TRACE to revise JOP for future runs. MDI: Before May 9: HiRes, after May 9: Full Disk * May 13-16 JOP124 Eruptive Filament in Active Region, 7 UT - 16 UT, SUMER/CDS/EIT/THEMIS, POC: Stephane Regnier(MEDOC), Frederic Paletou(THEMIS) Note: When in Submode 5, only half-res EIT images. * May 15-22 AR Plage, Moss, Small Scale Magnetic Flux, MDI/TRACE/LaPalma Contact: Trace Planner. The observers at LaPalma will decide the TRACE target and send e-mail out. They will CC target selection plans to MEDOC at medoc-cmp@medoc.medoc-ias.u-psud.fr b) Individual instrument plans See calendar or instrument planning pages for relevant details. CDS: http://solg2.bnsc.rl.ac.uk/~harrison/planning.html UVCS: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/uvcs/observations/obst.html EIT: Will discuss at EIT meeting what new science to achieve and then may develop some special observations. LASCO: May 7 until May 21, we will follow the passage of Mercury through the C3 and C2 fields of view. These observations will require special observations in different color filters, with manual operation of the camera shutters once a day during this period. To do this, we will need to interrupt the onboard plan during NRT each weekday, execute the observations, and then reload the plan (2 hours NRT time). We also have a request for support of MERLIN radio scintillation studies of the solar wind for TBD times between May 12 and May 16. Again, this falls during our team meetings, so we may only be able to offer limited support (C2 and C3 synoptics). If we have sufficient advance notice, we may be able to include appropriate subfield images in the onboard plan. The plans for May 7 through May 21 will all be prepared before May 5, and cannot be changed after that date. Otherwise, we plan only C2 and C3 synoptic sequences. MDI: See note under section 8 c) Intercalibration activities Intercal 1 Suggested date: May 19, when it is technically possible for everyone (CDS/EIT/SUMER/TRACE) to participate. TRACE participation TBC.

5. Preview of future months

* See the Monthly Calendar at: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/soc/head_calendar.html

6. AOB

* Next SPWG meeting, May 19 at 2pm

7. Visitors to MEDOC during Campaign #5

Apr 27-May 21 Christophe David May 1-14 Olav Kjeldseth-Moe, Terje Fredvik May 2-7 Werner Curdt May 2-9 Peter Heinzel May 3-11 Robert Erdelyi von Fay-Siebenburgen, Gerry Doyle, Maria Madjarska May 5-12 Francoise Bely-Dubau Reminder -- the address to use for batch e-mail to the MEDOC planners during the campaign is: medoc-cmp@medoc.medoc-ias.u-psud.fr This has also been added to the monthly calendar.

8. MDI Plans for Continuous Contact (through July 9)

This year the nominal MDI 3-month continuous contact period has suffered a delayed startup period and frequent gaps in the initial best-effort month due to the requirements of a larger than usual number of launches, including 40-day-plus continuous coverage for IMAGE (whose launch date slipped and which then needed additional DSN coverage to deal with excess nutation). In order to come as close as possible to meeting the priority science objectives for Continuous Dynamics, we need to start a full-disk (cropped) Dopplergram/magnetogram program on May 9, to complete a 60-day run by Jul 9. The possibility of a further extension of the continuous contact beyond Jul 9 looks unlikely because of the scheduled launches of TDRSS and CLUSTER. Until May 22, there will continue to be significant gaps in contact (due to the GOES launch and delayed launch of EUTLsat4), so we have almost no flexibility for running high-resolution programs, even for brief periods. (One specific exception is support of the TXI rocket flight now scheduled for June 26). Before the full-disk (Magnetic) Dynamics run begins, we need to accomplish the priority local-helioseismology objectives for which the best effort month exists, by running one or more high-resolution programs for a total of two weeks. At this point we are running out of time, so a continuous high-resolution program must begin on Apr 24. With the expected gaps in contact, we have no flexibility for running full-disk programs during this high-resolution period (Apr 24 -- May 8). The Continuous Dynamics program will be run in best focus for the full-disk images (not optimum for high-resolution images). To achieve this, on May 8 we will load software to change the focus position for our observing campaigns. For approximately 8 hours before and 8 hours after the load, we will run a three-variable (Dopplergram, continuum, magnetogram), high-resolution program with 7 arcmin square extract, to compare the high resolution data at the two focus positions. This overall plan is consistent with our previously advertised Continuous Dynamics strategy, although we had assumed that we would have better opportunity to run the two-week high-resolution program previously, so that by now we would be in continuous full-disk mode, with possibly more flexibility for brief interruptions for special programs. We regret any problems that this updated plan may cause with lack of support for JOPs for which we anticipated we could provide full-disk magnetograms at one minute cadence. The MDI helioseismology objectives for which the continuous contact period is designed must take precedence.