Subj: [Fwd: Re: Real-Time LASCO Movies & Images]

Date: 1/19/00 7:46:45 AM Pacific Standard Time

Hi Kent,

Here is an e-mail I sent to the webmaster of the SOHO/LASCO Real-Time
site. However, I was unaware that the satellite is "European" and just the
LASCO camera is "American". Huge mistake on my part. Anyway, here is the reply I received.

Regards,

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Real-Time LASCO Movies & Images
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 09:54:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Dennis Wang
Reply-To: Dennis Wang
To: tedwards@tcia.net

Dear Sir,
I don't think you realize that SOHO is a European research satellite.
LASCO is one of the two US instruments aboard out of 12 instruments. It
is not a space weather forecasting satellite and it is not funded to operate on a
7/24 basis. We provide near real time coverage of the Sun as part of our
public outreach program not as part of our primary mission. With our limited
manpower we do not work over national holidays such as Martin Luther King Day
(1/17/2000) and when the image processing halts for whatever reason (power problems,
network outage, hardware , software failure, garbled data) there is no one to
fix it until the following working day. This also applies for weekends and
other holidays. See the real-time movie page FAQ.

You should also be aware that our telescopes are scientific instruments.
That means that scientists run special observing sequences from time to time
that may emphasize one telescope over the other. See the real-time movie
FAQ.

Given that the solar cycle is 11 years long, a weekend of delay is not
generally important. I think that our processing has caught up and that the 1/17
images are on the WWW page.

Dennis Wang