A brief questionaire was sent out on 1 
May 1996.
The aims of the questionaire were as follows:
To expand our database of potential AXAF observers.
To allow estimation of the resources the ASC will need in order to
efficiently handle proposal submission and data distribution.
To update email addresses ready for incorporation in our AXAF Users Database.
To update the Newsletter mailing list
The questionaire was sent to the 1437, non-span entries of the SAO ROSAT Science Data Center mailing list. This list includes PROS users, PROS sites and ROSAT Guest Observers worldwide. The questionaire was kept short and simple in order to encourage the maximum number of replies. It posed the following questions:
If you do not already, would you like to receive the AXAF Newsletter?
How many AXAF proposals do you anticipate writing in the first round?
Which of the following media are preferable
/acceptable/not acceptable as a
medium on which you would wish to receive your AXAF data.
P = preferable; A = Acceptable; N = Not Acceptable
What computer do you currently use?
What operating system do you currently use?
Which WWW browser do you currently use?
What is your preferred email address?
We received 204 (198 astronomers, 6 libraries) replies to our
questionaire and a significant number of
email errors due to incorrect or out-dated addresses.
Taking into account the number of failed mailings, this return
represents 
% of those sent.
We are currently developing a multi-purpose database of AXAF users into which the information on correct and failed email addresses will be incorporated. We invite any interested reader who is neither on the Newsletter mailing list nor received a questionaire to send email requesting addition to usupport@cfa.harvard.edu including their email and regular mail addresses.
We will summarise the results of the questionaire taking each question in turn.
Newsletter: 195 people replied positively, many of whom were
already on the Newsletter mailing list.
Proposals: 192 replies yielded an average of 2 per person
for a total of 366 estimated first round proposals. The minimum number
was 0 (11 people) and the maximum 5 (10 people).
Based on the results of
similar surveys for earlier missions, we expect this to be
within a factor of 
of the number we will receive.
Data Distribution Medium: 198 answers to this question were
received. Preferences are distributed roughly evenly between media
types: CDROM, Tape, network. Within the tape subset, EXABYTE is
marginally ahead of DAT.
| Medium | Preferred | Acceptable | Not-acc'ble |
| CDROM | 42% | 47% | 11% |
| DAT | 23% | 51% | 26% |
| EXABYTE | 18% | 63% | 19% |
| FTP | 32% | 56% | 12% |
Computer Equipment:
194 replies here show that SUN computer users dominate with
only 40 users (21%) having no access to a SUN.
Of these, 11 use PCs of various kinds and 29 use Dec/Vax machines.
| Computer | OS | # Users | Comments |
SUN  | Solaris | 94 | |
|
SUN | SUN OS | 23 | |
| Dec/Vax | Ultrix | 44 | 15 have SUN access |
HP  | 5 | ||
|
IBM | 3 | ||
|
MAC | 12 | ||
a: 36 OS not specified
b: 11 PC users have no access to Dec/SUN
WWW Browsers: Netscape is the clear leader in these results.
| Netscape | Xmosaic | Either | Total |
| 78% | 19% | 3% | 193 |
Belinda Wilkes