SOHO SPWG Minutes



 		    NOVEMBER SPWG MEETING MINUTES
		        FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1997 


Chair: Piet Martens (ESA/SOC)
Notes: Laura Allen (NASA/SOC)

 Attendees: Bernhard Fleck (ESA), Joe Gurman (EIT),  Rock Bush (MDI),
           Chris St. Cyr (LASCO/EIT), Andrzej Fludra (CDS),
           John Kohl (UVCS), Julia Saba (MDI), Russ Howard (LASCO),
           Harold Benefield (FOT) 


 1. Review of action items

        - Info on Whole Sun Month
       
   After some discussion, it was decided to keep "Whole Sun Month"
   in August.  At first, Andrzej Fludra brought up the point that 
   many people are on vacation in August and it may be a lot of work
   for people in August to have "Whole Sun Month" then.  However,
   other people mentioned that if most of the "Whole Sun Month"
   was a sort of "modified synoptic".. it may be good to do that
   in August while people are on vacation.  

   Moreover, September and October are prime months for joint observing
   with Ground Based Observatories in the Northern hemisphere, and we
   do not want to preempt a large number of collaborations.

   EIT FPSS Offset:
   Some discussion about perhaps offpointing by 25 arcminutes on one
   limb, then proceeding to the next limb and offpoining another 25
   arcminutes. FOT, SOC and Project Scientist will await detailed plan
   from EIT team
 
 2. Boundary conditions for the coming month
   
   - MDI Continuous: Dec 11-15
   - Submode changes: changes involving CDS need to scheduled well in advance 
   - TR maintenance and memory dumps scheduled for December 1
   - No long contact on Christmas day and New Years, contacts will be
     just long enough to dump the SSR (people can still send commands
     during SSR dump so should not be a problem).


 3. Preview of future months

        - See Monthly Calendar at 
          http://sohowww/operations/schedule/calendar.html

Some discussion on the next roll which has moved up in date to April of
1998. All inputs for next roll maneuver from the science community MUST
be communicated to the SOCs the day before the January SPWG meeting.
Inputs received will be discussed at the SPWG.  SOC will then resolve any
conflicts among the instrument teams (which there was last time..),
then provide input to the FOT by January 31, 1997.

 
Priorities for the coming month

a) Individual instrument plans

    MDI -- during continuous will be running dynamics program at 30 second
           cadence doppler and continuum images.
           Will also be performing calibrations in the next month
    EIT -- Blinkers study.  When active region 8100 is on the disk will
           run CME watch at 195 and 171 angstroms (high science priority).
    LASCO -- will be doing door closed calibrations during 29 November
             maneuvers for C1.  High priority is to re-make Christmas movie
             of galactic center with Submode #2 telemetry.
    CDS -- Priority is three different types of active region loop studies.
           Variability of active region loops on the limb, limb active
           regions, and picking up and active region at sun center and
           following it across the disk.  CDS will also be changing 
           weekend operations slightly to try to simplify things: this
           implies less operations intensive studies such as quiet sun
           monitoring and coronal hole spectra.  CDS will not be available
           for JOPs on the weekends in general; however exceptions will be
           made for occassional important JOPs.  
   UVCS - priority on MHD wave observations jointly with CDS.  Would like
          to correlate disk events seen by CDS with limb events seen by
          UVCS (see joint plans below).

b) Intercalibration activities

Intercalibration 001 planned for early December.


c) Joint observing plans

January 1998 -- Observations of MDH waves (UVCS and CDS).  EIT could 
                probably run their microjet campaign as support for this.
                MDI points out that they will be in continuous contact
                starting on Jan 9.  Perhaps if they wanted to do a 
                "test run" of these prior to MDI continuous, otherwise
                MDI will not be able to support.        

 5. JOPs status

- Naming convention for GBO's  
  Bernhard Fleck has gone through all entries of the campaign database
  and added the keyword GBO to all entries with ground-based participation.
  He has homogeneized the naming of the various observatories:

  Kitt Peak (instead of KP, NSKP, ...)
  Sac Peak  (instead of SP, SPO, ...)
  Big Bear (instead of BBSO, BBO, ..)
  VTT Tenerife
  GCT Tenerife
  La Palma


 6. New JOPs

  - JOP 071  SOHO Observations in Support of the HAO/NSO/Michigan/Rhodes
             College/Lindau Experiments at the February 26 1998 Eclipse 
  - JOP 072  High Cadence Chromospheric and Coronal Dynamics Studies with
             SOHO and TRACE 
  - JOP 073  Blinkers    

A suggestion was made to have a "microcommittee" for eclipse observations.
Piet Martens will send a message to "Solar News" saying basically if you
want support for eclipse observations with SOHO you must reply before
December 18 (the date of the next SPWG).

 7. AOB

* SOLs --  Joe Gurman brought up the discussion of Science Operations
      Leaders.  His feeling was that some SOLs are not doing an effective
      job at running the daily meetings and the SOC can do an equally
      effective, if not better job.  It seemed like some SOLs were scheduled
      "just because we needed one" and contributed little to the 
      discussion of JOPs and just lengthened the meetings.  Others pointed
      out that there had been some highly effective and involved SOLs.

      John Kohl pointed out that during the SIMs, the SOLs were more or
      less defining JOPs (not running meetings), but he still likes the SOL
      idea.  Others pointed out that, if the science community wants SOLs,
      the SOLs should start volunteering rather than Piet Martens constantly
      nagging people in order to "fill in the calendar".

      Laura Allen commented that she has seen both good and bad extremes.
      She added that it sometimes is helpful to her to have the SOL run
      the meeting since it sometimes gets busy and there is no longer a
      "third SOC" to help.  The last person (S. Adams) that was hired to
      help out did not work out well and is now employed elsewhere.
        
      Conclusion:  
     - Keep scheduling SOLs at least until a third SOC is hired and
       has received job training.
     - SOLs should feel free to consult with the SOC, and the SOL 
       will have the OPTION as to whether or not they want to run the
       daily planning meeting (or contribute in another manner such
       as helping with planning..).
   
   
* Julia Saba remarked on a TRACE Sim that will occur in December:
  (Information from Ted Tarbell)

  Dec 1-5:  TRACE Operations Sim (last one running the flight observatory)
  Dec 1:  Launch
  Dec 2:  Instrument turn-on
  Dec 3:  Instrument commissioning & Scientific observing
  Dec 4-5:  Scientific Observing

Adjourned: 3:45 pm