The committee met on the evening of 10 June 1996, during the AAS convocation in Madison, Wisconsin. Attending were committee members Bruce Lites, David Rust (Chair), Tuck Stebbins, and Dick White; Steve Keil sat in for member Rita Sagalyn. Jacques Beckers and Doug Rabin represented the NSO. Kenneth Schatten and Hugh Van Horn represented the National Science Foundation. The focus of the meeting was the SOLIS (Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun) proposal and the adaptive optics program. SOLIS is currently under review at the NSF. The Users' Committee strongly endorses SOLIS, and letters to that effect have been written to the NSF program directors involved. Considering the importance of synoptic full-disk observations for research on the solar cycle, the committee feels that SOLIS should be the first-priority new instrumentation project at NSO. SOLIS can be operational in time to play a major role in the Solar Magnetism Initiative that is now being assembled at the NCAR High Altitude Observatory. The committee discussed the need for HAO to participate in a material way in bringing SOLIS on line. In order to keep the US at the forefront of solar cycle/solar magnetism research, we should start SOLIS in the next fiscal year, and immediate HAO participation, both scientifically and in some areas of instrumentation, should be sought by the NSO management.
Jacques Beckers gave us an update on the CLEAR project. Good progress is being made in the engineering studies, especially in understanding the various cost vs. capability trade-offs. However, the committee feels that a Web page should be established to give the solar research community an opportunity to review the CLEAR project and, through an open discussion format similar to the one now being used on the NOAO Web page, to discuss the merits and needs of the project. The committee felt that the NSO Users Web page should be established somewhere other than NOAO, and David Rust agreed to set one up under the guidance of the Users' Committee. The planned Web site was seen by the committee in the broader sense, namely, as a way for NSO users to communicate better with NSO management and the Users' Committee.
An important issue for discussion on the Web site is the future of adaptive optics at NSO. Rabin announced that work on the image reconstructor has been suspended, pending successful development of other elements in the image improvement program at the Sacramento Peak Vacuum Tower Telescope. In view of the recent retirement of the lead mechanical engineer on the project and the shortage of funding, the committee concurred with Rabin's decision. The adaptive optics project now aims to improve VTT image quality with a fast correlation tracker (with tilt-tip mirror) and continued gradual improvements in the main optics, as well as experiments to verify a scheme for wavefront sensing. Community advice will be important in determining how much of NSO's resources should be devoted to the adaptive optics program in the next five years.
Finally, the committee wishes to commend Jack Harvey, Christoph Keller and the other members of the NSO scientific staff who acted so quickly to assemble the excellent SOLIS proposal, when an opportunity for new funding became clear. The committee also commends Doug Rabin for so effectively handling NSO affairs as the acting director during the year of Jacques Beckers' devotion to the CLEAR project.
David Rust, Chair (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.)