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Daily #4064



 
 
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Old March 7th 06, 02:31 PM posted to sci.astro.hubble
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Default Daily #4064

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science

DAILY REPORT #4064

PERIOD COVERED: UT March 06, 2006 (DOY 065)

OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED

ACS/HRC 10738

Earth Flats

Sky flats will be obtained by observing the bright Earth with the HRC
and WFC. These observations will be used to verify the accuracy of the
flats currently in the pipeline and to monitor any changes. Weekly
coronagraphic monitoring is required to assess the changing position
of the spots.

ACS/HRC/WFC 10729

ACS CCDs daily monitor

This program consists of a set of basic tests to monitor, the read
noise, the development of hot pixels and test for any source of noise
in ACS CCD detectors. The files, biases and dark will be used to
create reference files for science calibration. This programme will be
for the entire lifetime of ACS. Changes from cycle 13:- The default
gain for WFC is 2 e-/DN. As before bias frames will be collected for
both gain 1 and gain 2. Dark frames are acquired using the default
gain {2}. This program cover the period Oct, 2 2005- May, 29-2006. The
second half of the program has a different proposal number: 10758.

ACS/WFC 10496

Decelerating and Dustfree: Efficient Dark Energy Studies with
Supernovae and Clusters

We propose a novel HST approach to obtain a dramatically more useful
"dust free" Type Ia supernovae {SNe Ia} dataset than available with
the previous GOODS searches. Moreover, this approach provides a
strikingly more efficient search-and-follow-up that is primarily pre-
scheduled. The resulting dark energy measurements do not share the
major systematic uncertainty at these redshifts, that of the
extinction correction with a prior. By targeting massive galaxy
clusters at z 1 we obtain a five-times higher efficiency in
detection of Type Ia supernovae in ellipticals, providing a
well-understood host galaxy environment. These same deep cluster
images then also yield fundamental calibrations required for future
weak lensing and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich measurements of dark energy, as
well as an entire program of cluster studies. The data will make
possible a factor of two improvement on supernova constraints on dark
energy time variation, and much larger improvement in systematic
uncertainty. They will provide both a cluster dataset and a SN Ia
dataset that will be a longstanding scientific resource.

ACS/WFC 10622

ACS Photometric Calibration from Faint Standards

When calibrating photometry, the typical approach is to use short
exposures of bright standard stars to calibrate long exposures of
faint scientific targets. This is fine for most ground-based
telescopes, whose detectors are linear, but presents difficulties when
calibrating HST. The resulting HST calibrations are thus extremely
sensitive to the accuracy of linearity corrections such as that for
CTE loss. We propose a more robust calibration of ACS/WFC using our
photometric sequences in Pal 4 and Pal 14 {Saha et al. 2005}. These
sequences include stars with 10% photometry down to V=24.2 and I=23.4,
a brightness comparable to that of many HST science targets. We
believe these data will allow us to determine a complete set of
transformations accurate to 1% and relatively insensitive to errors in
the CTE correction.

ACS/WFC 10775

An ACS Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters

We propose to conduct an ACS/WFC imaging survey of Galactic globular
clusters. We will construct the most extensive and deepest set of
photometry and astrometry to-date for these systems reaching a main
sequence mass of ~0.2 solar mass with S/N = 10. We will combine these
data with archival WFPC2 and STIS images to determine proper motions
for the stars in our fields. The resultant cleaned cluster CMDs will
allow us to study a variety of scientific questions. These include
[but are not limited to] 1} the determination of cluster ages and
distances 2} the construction of main sequence mass functions and the
issue of mass segregation 3} the internal motions and dynamical
evolution of globular clusters, and 4} absolute cluster motions,
orbits, and the Milky Way gravitational potential. We anticipate that
the unique resource provided by the proposed treasury archive will
play a central role in the field of globular cluster studies for
decades, with a stature comparable to that of the Hubble Deep Field
for high redshift studies.

ACS/WFC/NIC2 10566

Star Formation in the LMC - The complete IMF of a Stellar Association

We propose to use the large improvement in sensitivity and wide-field
resolution provided by ACS to obtain, for the first time, the complete
Initial Mass Function {IMF} down to sub-solar masses of a very young
stellar association in the Large Magellanic Cloud {LMC}. Such an IMF
will serve as a reference IMF typical of low-metallicity regions. We
want to obtain VI deep {V ~ 26.5 mag} WFC photometry of the
association LH 95 and a nearby background field pointing. Special care
will be taken to treat all the complications which arise in the
reduction of data for the purpose of calculating the IMF of a young
association of stars. Our object of study has been chosen because it
is one of the associations, which provide the best combination of
spatial resolution, crowding, low extinction, nebular contamination,
and background confusion in comparison to others in the Local Group.
The region also has the advantage of being very young with indications
that it is still forming stars, thus allowing us to search for
sub-solar pre-main- sequence stars, as well as for an embedded
proto-cluster.

NIC1/NIC2/NIC3 8793

NICMOS Post-SAA calibration - CR Persistence Part 4

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.

WFPC2 10748

WFPC2 CYCLE 14 Standard Darks

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 10751

WFPC2 CYCLE 14 Intflat Linearity Check and Filter Rotation Anomaly
Monitor

Intflat observations will be taken to provide a linearity check: the
linearity test consists of a series of intflats in F555W, in each gain
and each shutter. A combination of intflats, visflats, and earthflats
will be used to check the repeatability of filter wheel motions.
{Intflat sequences tied to decons, visits 1-18 in prop 10363, have
been moved to the cycle 14 decon proposal 10744 for easier
scheduling.} Note: long-exposure WFPC2 intflats must be scheduled
during ACS anneals to prevent stray light from the WFPC2 lamps from
contaminating long ACS external exposures.

FLIGHT OPERATIONS SUMMARY:

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

HSTARS:

10159 - GSAcq(1,2,1) failed to RGA control (T2G) due to scan step
limit exceeded on FGS-1 @ 066/08:05:46z

At acquisition of signal 066/08:05:46 the GSAcq(1,2,1) scheduled at
066/07:43:35 - 07:51:12 during ZOE period showed the spacecraft in RGA
control, due to scan step limit exceeded indication flag on FGS-1.

COMPLETED OPS REQUEST: (None)

COMPLETED OPS NOTES: (None)

SCHEDULED SUCCESSFUL FAILURE TIMES
FGS GSacq 04 03 Hstar # 10159
FGS REacq 08 08
OBAD with Maneuver 18 18

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: (None)

 




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