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Daily Report #4569



 
 
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Old March 18th 08, 02:59 PM posted to sci.astro.hubble
Cooper, Joe
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Default Daily Report #4569

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science

DAILY REPORT****** # 4569

PERIOD COVERED: UT March 17, 2008 (DOY 077)

OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED

WFPC2 11024

WFPC2 CYCLE 15 INTERNAL MONITOR

This calibration proposal is the Cycle 15 routine internal monitor for
WFPC2, to be run weekly to monitor the health of the cameras. A
variety of internal exposures are obtained in order to provide a
monitor of the integrity of the CCD camera electronics in both bays
{both gain 7 and gain 15 -- to test stability of gains and bias
levels}, a test for quantum efficiency in the CCDs, and a monitor for
possible buildup of contaminants on the CCD windows. These also
provide raw data for generating annual super-bias reference files for
the calibration pipeline.

NIC1/NIC2/NIC3 8795

NICMOS Post-SAA calibration - CR Persistence Part 6

A new procedure proposed to alleviate the CR-persistence problem of
NICMOS. Dark frames will be obtained immediately upon exiting the SAA
contour 23, and every time a NICMOS exposure is scheduled within 50
minutes of coming out of the SAA. The darks will be obtained in
parallel in all three NICMOS Cameras. The POST-SAA darks will be
non-standard reference files available to users with a USEAFTER
date/time mark. The keyword 'USEAFTER=date/time' will also be added to
the header of each POST-SAA DARK frame. The keyword must be populated
with the time, in addition to the date, because HST crosses the SAA ~8
times per day so each POST-SAA DARK will need to have the appropriate
time specified, for users to identify the ones they need. Both the raw
and processed images will be archived as POST-SAA DARKSs. Generally we
expect that all NICMOS science/calibration observations started within
50 minutes of leaving an SAA will need such maps to remove the CR
persistence from the science images. Each observation will need its
own CRMAP, as different SAA passages leave different imprints on the
NICMOS detectors.

NIC2 11219

Active Galactic Nuclei in nearby galaxies: a new view of the origin of
the radio-loud radio-quiet dichotomy?

Using archival HST and Chandra observations of 34 nearby early-type
galaxies {drawn from a complete radio selected sample} we have found
evidence that the radio-loud/radio-quiet dichotomy is directly
connected to the structure of the inner regions of their host galaxies
in the following sense: [1] Radio-loud AGN are associated with
galaxies with shallow cores in their light profiles [2] Radio-quiet
AGN are only hosted by galaxies with steep cusps. Since the brightness
profile is determined by the galaxy's evolution, through its merger
history, our results suggest that the same process sets the AGN
flavour. This provides us with a novel tool to explore the
co-evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes, and it opens a
new path to understand the origin of the radio-loud/radio-quiet AGN
dichotomy. Currently our analysis is statistically incomplete as the
brightness profile is not available for 82 of the 116 targets. Most
galaxies were not observed with HST, while in some cases the study is
obstructed by the presence of dust features. We here propose to
perform an infrared NICMOS snapshot survey of these 82 galaxies. This
will enable us to i} test the reality of the dichotomic behaviour in a
substantially larger sample; ii} extend the comparison between
radio-loud and radio-quiet AGN to a larger range of luminosities.

NIC3 11120

A Paschen-Alpha Study of Massive Stars and the ISM in the Galactic
Center

The Galactic center (GC) is a unique site for a detailed study of a
multitude of complex astrophysical phenomena, which may be common to
nuclear regions of many galaxies. Observable at resolutions
unapproachable in other galaxies, the GC provides an unparalleled
opportunity to improve our understanding of the interrelationships of
massive stars, young stellar clusters, warm and hot ionized gases,
molecular clouds, large scale magnetic fields, and black holes. We
propose the first large-scale hydrogen Paschen alpha line survey of
the GC using NICMOS on the Hubble Space Telescope. This survey will
lead to a high resolution and high sensitivity map of the Paschen
alpha line emission in addition to a map of foreground extinction,
made by comparing Paschen alpha to radio emission. This survey of the
inner 75 pc of the Galaxy will provide an unprecedented and complete
search for sites of massive star formation. In particular, we will be
able to (1) uncover the distribution of young massive stars in this
region, (2) locate the surfaces of adjacent molecular clouds, (3)
determine important physical parameters of the ionized gas, (4)
identify compact and ultra-compact HII regions throughout the GC. When
combined with existing Chandra and Spitzer surveys as well as a wealth
of other multi-wavelength observations, the results will allow us to
address such questions as where and how massive stars form, how
stellar clusters are disrupted, how massive stars shape and heat the
surrounding medium, and how various phases of this medium are
interspersed.

WFPC2 11070

WFPC2 CYCLE 15 Standard Darks - part II

This dark calibration program obtains dark frames every week in order
to provide data for the ongoing calibration of the CCD dark current
rate, and to monitor and characterize the evolution of hot pixels.
Over an extended period these data will also provide a monitor of
radiation damage to the CCDs.

WFPC2 11121

Proper Motion of the Remarkable Irradiated Jet HH399 in the Trifid
Nebula

The Trifid nebula has recently been of much interest because of its
identification with a large number of massive protostars, as well as
young stellar objects. HH 399 is one of the most spectacular
Herbig-Haro flows recognized to be irradiated by the UV flux of the
massive O7.5 star in the Trifid nebula. The irradiated jet, which is
propagating in a fully ionized medium, contains numerous knots along
the jet and also shows evidence for a number of isolated knots running
immediately outside the jet. Two different HST observations of the
nebula, with different scientific goals, were carried out in 1997 and
2002, having sensitivities that differed by a factor of 10. We
performed preliminary proper motion measurements of the jet based on
these observations and discovered a continuous velocity structure of
the bright knots of about 230 km/sec. Here we propose four WFPC2
orbits to reobserve HH 399 in order to carry out accurate proper
motion measurements over the full extent of the jet, based on
observations spanning more than 10 years and having equally deep
sensitivity. The proposed observations are not simply a repeat of
previous measurements, as this will be the first highly accurate
proper motion measurement of an irradiated jet based on two identical
epochs of WFPC2 observations. The observations will improve the
accuracy of proper motion measurements for HH 399 by more than a
factor of five and will address important questions beyond our
preliminary result. Currently measured velocity differences between
the jet features are barely significant. The factor of 5 increase in
accuracy will establish the evidence for deceleration along the jet
and the lateral motion of the jet. In addition, these measurements
will address the kinematics of individual entrained and isolated blobs
of the jet as it propagates into an HII region associated with the
nebula. This is the last opportunity to perform this experiment before
WFPC2 is removed from HST.

WFPC2 11130

AGNs with Intermediate-mass Black Holes: Testing the Black Hole-Bulge
Paradigm, Part II

The recent progress in the study of central black holes in galactic
nuclei has led to a general consensus that supermassive {10^6-10^9
solar mass} black holes are closely connected with the formation and
evolutionary history of large galaxies, especially their bulge
component. Two outstanding issues, however, remain unresolved. Can
central black holes form in the absence of a bulge? And does the mass
function of central black holes extend below 10^6 solar masses?
Intermediate-mass black holes {10^6 solar masses}, if they exist, may
offer important clues to the nature of the seeds of supermassive black
holes. Using the SDSS, our group has successfully uncovered a new
population of AGNs with intermediate-mass black holes that reside in
low-luminosity galaxies. However, very little is known about the
detailed morphologies or structural parameters of the host galaxies
themselves, including the crucial question of whether they have bulges
or not. Surprisingly, the majority of the targets of our Cycle 14
pilot program have structural properties similar to dwarf elliptical
galaxies. The statistics from this initial study, however, are really
too sparse to reach definitive conclusions on this important new class
of black holes. We wish to extend this study to a larger sample, by
using the Snapshot mode to obtain WFPC2 F814W images from a parent
sample of 175 AGNs with intermediate- mass black holes selected from
our final SDSS search. We are particularly keen to determine whether
the hosts contain bulges, and if so, how the fundamental plane
properties of the host depend on the mass of their central black
holes. We will also investigate the environment of this unique class
of AGNs.

WFPC2 11202

The Structure of Early-type Galaxies: 0.1-100 Effective Radii

The structure, formation and evolution of early-type galaxies is still
largely an open problem in cosmology: how does the Universe evolve
from large linear scales dominated by dark matter to the highly
non-linear scales of galaxies, where baryons and dark matter both play
important, interacting, roles? To understand the complex physical
processes involved in their formation scenario, and why they have the
tight scaling relations that we observe today {e.g. the Fundamental
Plane}, it is critically important not only to understand their
stellar structure, but also their dark-matter distribution from the
smallest to the largest scales. Over the last three years the SLACS
collaboration has developed a toolbox to tackle these issues in a
unique and encompassing way by combining new non-parametric strong
lensing techniques, stellar dynamics, and most recently weak
gravitational lensing, with high-quality Hubble Space Telescope
imaging and VLT/Keck spectroscopic data of early-type lens systems.
This allows us to break degeneracies that are inherent to each of
these techniques separately and probe the mass structure of early-type
galaxies from 0.1 to 100 effective radii. The large dynamic range to
which lensing is sensitive allows us both to probe the clumpy
substructure of these galaxies, as well as their low-density outer
haloes. These methods have convincingly been demonstrated, by our
team, using smaller pilot-samples of SLACS lens systems with HST data.
In this proposal, we request observing time with WFPC2 and NICMOS to
observe 53 strong lens systems from SLACS, to obtain complete
multi-color imaging for each system. This would bring the total number
of SLACS lens systems to 87 with completed HST imaging and effectively
doubles the known number of galaxy-scale strong lenses. The deep HST
images enable us to fully exploit our new techniques, beat down
low-number statistics, and probe the structure and evolution of
early-type galaxies, not only with a uniform data-set an order of
magnitude larger than what is available now, but also with a fully
coherent and self-consistent methodological approach!

WFPC2 11207

Star Formation in the Perseus Cluster Cooling Flow

We propose to obtain high resolution, UV/optical imaging of the
"accretion populations" in the massive cooling flow of the Perseus
cluster of galaxies. New GALEX observations show that the dominant
galaxy in this nearby cluster, NGC 1275, has an extended network of
UV-bright populations apparently formed recently from the intracluster
gas. Cluster cooling flows are the most prominent of the environments
where we can readily observe the cycle of gas accretion, star
formation, and feedback from active nuclei that is thought to play a
central role in the formation and evolution of galaxies. Because they
can be readily age-dated, the accretion populations help to trace the
sequence of exchange of material between galaxies and the intracluster
medium. The ACS/SBC and WFPC2/PC cameras offer the highest spatial
resolution and best panchromatic performance available to map the
spatial and age distribution of the accretion populations and their
relationship to radio-emitting plasma and the hot intracluster gas.

FLIGHT OPERATIONS SUMMARY:

Significant Spacecraft Anomalies: (The following are preliminary
reports of potential non-nominal performance that will be
investigated.)

HSTARS: None

COMPLETED OPS REQUEST: (None)

COMPLETED OPS NOTES: (None)

*********************** SCHEDULED***** SUCCESSFUL

FGS GSacq************** 09***************** 09
FGS REacq************** 05***************** 05
OBAD with Maneuver **** 28***************** 28

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: (None)


 




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