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From the NSO Director's Office (1Sep94) (from NSO, NOAO Newsletter No. 39, 1 September 1994) As this Newsletter goes to press I have learned about a severe threat to the continued existence of the solar research team of the USAF Phillips Laboratory/Geophysics Directorate (PL/GP) at Sac Peak. Present planning foresees a termination of this program in October 1995. Unless this preliminary decision, made at the highest levels in the US Air Force, is reversed, this would deal a severe blow to geophysics research and to the solar research program at Sac Peak. In addition to contributing to NSO/SP with their high quality solar research program, the PL/GP provides 25% of the operations budget of the observatory and in addition supports a number of instrumentation and other initiatives in the community and within NSO. Anyone interested in more information on how to help should contact Steve Keil or Don Neidig. An illness in May caused by a most nasty but (judging from the press it received) very influential bacterium forced me to cancel the NSO Users Committee meeting which was scheduled to occur during the Solar Physics Division meeting in Baltimore. Instead the committee met by telecon on 3 June after I had recovered sufficiently. Most of the meeting was spent in discussions of the report of the Observatory Visiting Committee, the NSO Management Plan, the Draft NSO Future Directions Plan and the 1995 Program Plan. The Committee's reaction to the Future Directions Plan was positive. The committee focussed on the problems facing the adaptive optics program which is under-funded and progressing slowly. Suggestions ranged from involving other partners in the effort to trying to attract additional resources. The Users' Committee stressed again the importance of pursuing the development of adaptive optics as a user facility within NSO. The Committee will meet again in Tucson in November. We are presently interviewing candidates for the Assistant Scientist position at NSO/KP. This is the first new scientist position in Tucson in many years. The person selected will have as primary obligation the support of Kitt Peak observing. In June the Director of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate visited Kitt Peak, including the solar facilities and laboratory capabilities at the McMath-Pierce complex. The 10 May annular and partial solar eclipse drew a lot of public and scientific attention at both Kitt Peak and Sac Peak. At Sac Peak this was heightened by the dedication of the nearby Apache Point Observatory scheduled to occur to coincide with this celestial event. NOAO and NSO have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Kiepenheuer Institute in Germany for the joint construction of a fast read-out CCD system. Collaborations with other institutes will be sought in situations where both will win. Another collaboration is presently being explored with the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) involving an upgrade of the Correlation Tracker. Ground-breaking at the Learmonth, Australia GONG site in June followed a successful GONG '94 meeting in Los Angeles in May and a briefing on the status of the GONG project at NSF on 8 June. GONG is getting close to its deployment and excitement is high and growing. Jacques M. Beckers
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