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From the NSO Director's Office (1Jun95) (from NSO, NOAO Newsletter No. 42, June 1995) These are busy times for the National Solar Observatory. The past quarter included a number of important events. GONG Deployment Starts The first two GONG stations arrived at their sites on Iza¤a/Tenerife and Learmonth/Australia. Under the leadership of Frank Hill and Rob Hubbard they were commissioned promptly and are supplying data to the Tucson central facility. Data inter-calibration and merging is going well and together with the GONG station in Tucson, the GONG mini-network is in place. It provides about 70 % coverage. First (v,l) diagrams are in hand. Full deployment of GONG is expected by the end of September this year. For more information I refer you to the Global Oscillation Network Group report in this Newsletter. NSO's Future Directions Plan/SOLVE Our 10-15-year research plan for "The Understanding and Prediction of Solar Variability" was mailed to many members in of the solar community. It is also known under the acronym SOLVE (Solar Variability Enterprise). The plan is the result of internal planning within NSO, with the participation of our resident partners (USAF, NASA, SPRC, NJIT). It is based on new capabilities that will be available shortly to "look into" the solar convection zone. These include the GONG and SoHO/SOI facilities, precise surface photometry by RISE/PSPT, surface flow and magnetic field observations and observations of other large scale features, by Yohkoh for example. The plan was discussed by the NSO User's Committee as well as by a small group of helioseismology experts that gathered during the January AAS meeting. There was a strong recommendation by both groups to broaden the participation in the program to include a wide segment of the solar community both within and outside the USA. If you have not received a copy of the plan yet, please ask me for one (jbeckers@noao.edu). At the upcoming meeting of the Solar Physics Division (Memphis, 4 - 8 June) there will be a public session on SOLVE. Two related workshops are being planned as well: 16-21 October 1995 at Sac Peak on "Solar Drivers of Interplanetary and Terrestrial Disturbances" and 28-30 March 1996 in Tucson on the structure of the solar convection zone and solar cycle diagnostics. The Future of NOAO/NSO The AURA Observatories Advisory Committee held a workshop in Albuquerque 12-14 March to discuss the future plans for NOAO. It was followed by a similar discussion during the AURA Board meetings in Washington DC on 3-5 April. The prospects for the National Solar Observatory received a great deal of attention. What was generally recognized as a good plan for the future development of solar astronomy within NSO is threatened by budgetary pressures on a program that is already stretched to the limit. As a result of the two discussions, AURA will ask the National Science Foundation to commission a high level study of ground-based solar astronomy, somewhat along the lines of the recently completed McCray Committee study for nighttime astronomy. Collaborations In efforts to optimize the use of solar community resources, I am encouraging collaborations---especially where they result in a win-win situation. Recent examples are (1) the joint construction of a 1024 X 1024 high-speed (7frames/ sec) CCD camera with the Kiepenheuer Institute, and (2) a collaboration with the Rome Observatory to build a copy of the RISE/Precision Solar Photometric Telescope for Italy. We are now discussing collaborations with the Instituto de Astrof”sica de Canarias for the construction of a 256 X 256 IR camera, with the Stockholm Observatory on active/adaptive optics systems, and with the ESA/NASA SoHO program on joint observing programs. Jacques Beckers
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