Monterey, California, September 06, 03

Present:
Glenn Orton, Chair
Henry Roe, Titan Working Group Chair
  (also filling in for Frank Marchis, Satellites Working Group Chair)
Agustin Sanchez-Lavega, (Jupiter and Saturn) Atmospheres Working Group Chair
Heidi Hammel, Uranus and Neptune Working Group Chair
Carl Hibbits, Laboratory Support and Theory Working Group Chair
Ted Kostiuk, Auroral Working Group Chair emeritus
  (filling in for Jack Connerny, current Chair)
Kathy Rages, Uranus and Neptune Working Group member

Present at DPS, but forgot about the meeting:
Robert West, permanent member
Don Hunten, permanent member

Present at DPS, but wishing to remove themselves from the IOPW/SC membership:
Torrence Johnson
David Morrison
Michael Belton

Not present at DPS, but active:
Chris Russell, permanent member
Patrick Galopeau, Mag/Radio Emission Working Group Chair
Ron Oliverson, Io Torus Working Group Chair
Imke de Pater, permanent member
Maarten Roos-Serote, rotating member

Rotating members not present and unresponsive to email:
Steve Miller
B. Ryabov
Fernando Moreno
Nick Thomas
Tasashi Asada

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Orton suggested that Ryabov, Moreno and Asada be rotated off due to inactivity. Miller and Thomas may be contacted as to level of interest and availability
before being rotated off.

Thus, there are several positions open on the Steering Committee, if it is to
retain its original size.  Alternatively, having fewer permament members and
a larger Working Group Chair constituency has the advantage of relevance to
current concerns.  The permanent membership can take this issue up during the
year.  What is imporant from the Steering Committee's perspective is that the
various groups communicate with each other effectively.

The chair is grateful to Carl Hibbits for taking the remainder of notes from
the meeting.

We noted that NASA night notified those present of a new line item for NASA's
budget: Fundamental Research in Outer Planetary Systems, to include rings,
satellites, and atmospheres, with funding associated with the Prometheus
(nuclear-powered missions) project.

It was also suggested as a part of outreach, as well as general interest, that
Kelly Beatty (Sky and Telescope Associate Editor) be contacted as a means to
contact amateur observers who were collecting sometimes extremely useful CCD
images of Saturn.

Kostiuk reviewed auroral work.  He himself was engaged in long-term infared
studies of the auroral of Jupiter, done now over 3 solar maxima, including
Voyager IRIS encounters, looking for correaltions between single-line
emission and the solar cycle, concentrating on ethane, but including several
lines of hydrocarbons in the 7.8-14 micron spectral region.  Papers by the
CIRS team would soon be published on hydrocarbons, including the "auroral"
region.  He intended to do more Jupiter and Saturn work with his heterodyne
receiver at the IRTF, as well as measure wind speeds on Titan.  He noted that
Larry Trafton was measuring Saturn aurorae in H3+ with the IRTF SpeX
instrument.

Heidi Hammel's working group was to meet the following day, discussing the
current state of changes in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune, largely
dominated by AO ground-based observations, HST imaging, and VLA observations.
She reported many coordinated and mujltiple-wavelength observations of
Uranus and Neptune, incuding radio, VLA, 34-m radio telescopes operating
at 2 and 6 cm wavelenths.  An effort was underway to confirm a detection of
ethane in Uranus. Some mid-ir spectrosocpy using Aerospace's BASS 3-13 micron
spectrometer would be repeated during the 2007 opposition. Her group had made
new observations with SpeX at the IRTF in the 1-4 micron region, and Therese
Encrenaz had made new observations of Uranus with the VLT and discovered
tropospheric CO in the 3-5 micron region.  New HST observations had been
turned down.  New work was being done using the Keck AO system, co-ordinating
observations with Imke de Pater and ring and URanus wind studies at J, H and K'.
The Maui Air Force AO adaptive optics system as also going to be used.  Wes
Lockwood was continuing his studies of long-term variability of Uranus in the
CCD range, now stretching to 30 years of coverage.

Henry Roe reported creating a skeleton Titan observational website for
planning purposes: titaniopw.caltech.edu.  He reported many time-variable
observations occurring: clouds, composition and the perceived need to monitor
the Huygens probe entry site - particularly in the January, 2004, time frame
of the entry.  Kostiuk concurred in the need to look into coordinated
observations during the Cassini mission to support BOTH Saturn and Titan
science.

Agustin Sanchez-Lavega reported on an extant web site for Saturn observations,
primarily exhibiting observations by amateurs, that can be linked from the
Plantery Data System's Atmospheres Node.  Mark Vincent was working with Reta
Beebe as PDS/Atmopsheres Node chief in getting numerous observations of
Galileo-support Jupiter observations catalogued for general use, and he didn't
want to fall behind in Cassini-supporting Saturn observations.  The problem
with integrating amateur observations is that they don't use common or standard
formats to communicate their data.  At the moment, the web site does not
include observations planned - only archival observations.  Tommy Greathouse
had obtained hi-resolution thermal spectra of Jupiter and Saturn (that he
reported on the following Saturday).  Kevin Baines planned to make
visible/near-infrared observations of Jupiter and Saturn at McDonald
Observatory. 

An ad-hoc atmospheric support group met also on the following day to determine
optimal strategies for observing Saturn from several earth-based stations.
Alan Tokunaga reportedly will make the IRTF available for Cassini-support
campaigns with specific time reserved for such work.

Via email Maarten Roos-Serote supported the role that extensive amateur
observers can make on monitoring Saturn and Jupiter.

Via email Chris Russell promoted the continued desire to observe Jupiter
from the earth, but acknwledged that an "educational" program must be undertaken
to educate advisory committee members and NASA administrators on the value
of such work.  Orton notes that this could have a profound effect on science
preparation for JIMO, should it take place, as well as for any data taken
during the Jupiter flyby of the Pluto/Kuiper Belt mission in the 2007 time
frame.