This Joint Discussion is in two parts. The first part is a description of recent observations which illustrate the need for atomic data and the second part is a description of what atomic data are available or could readily be produced by the latest theoretical and experimental methods. The purpose of this summary is to highlight the immediate requirements for atomic data of current observations which are not met by our present knowledge and thereby indicate where further work is necessary in providing atomic data.

Although this is a discussion of atomic data the problems of assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium have inevitably been raised. The importance of considering whether departures from LTE are significant or not in the interpretation of observations is is clearly illustrated by the work of the Harvard group on the Lyman continuum emitted by the Sun which has shown a departure coefficient as large as 200 for the ground level of hydrogen.