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DAILY REPORT # 4155



 
 
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Old July 14th 06, 04:13 PM posted to sci.astro.hubble
Rosalie Consiglio
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Default DAILY REPORT # 4155

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science

DAILY REPORT # 4155

PERIOD COVERED: UT July 13, 2006 (DOY 194)

OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED

ACS/HRC/WFC 10733

CCD Hot Pixel Annealing

Hot pixel annealing will continue to be performed once every 4 weeks.
The CCD TECs will be turned off and heaters will be activated to bring
the detector temperatures to about +20C. This state will be held for
approximately 6 hours, after which the heaters are turned off, the
TECs turned on, and the CCDs returned to normal operating condition.
To assess the effectiveness of the annealing, a bias and four dark
images will be taken before and after the annealing procedure for both
WFC and HRC. The HRC darks are taken in parallel with the WFC darks.
The charge transfer efficiency {CTE} of the ACS CCD detectors declines
as damage due to on-orbit radiation exposure accumulates. This
degradation has been closely monitored at regular intervals, because
it is likely to determine the useful lifetime of the CCDs. We combine
the annealling activity with the charge transfer efficiency monitoring
and also merge into the routine dark image collection. To this end,
the CTE monitoring exposures have been moved into this proposal . All
the data for this program is acquired using internal targets {lamps}
only, so all of the exposures should be taken during Earth occultation
time {but not during SAA passages}. This program emulates the ACS
pre-flight ground calibration and post-launch SMOV testing {program
8948}, so that results from each epoch can be directly compared.
Extended Pixel Edge Response {EPER} and First Pixel Response {FPR}
data will be obtained over a range of signal levels for both the Wide
Field Channel {WFC}, and the High Resolution Channel {HRC}.

ACS/WFC 10421

Searching for Ancient Mergers in Early Type Host Galaxies of Classical
QSOs

Recent HST imaging of QSO host galaxies indicates that at least a
large fraction of QSOs reside in seemingly undisturbed elliptical
hosts. However, our deep Keck spectroscopy of a sample of these host
galaxies indicates that many of these objects were involved in a major
starburst episode between 0.6 and 1.6 Gyr ago. We propose to obtain
very deep ACS WFC observations of the five hosts in this sample that
have the most reliable age determinations to search for fine structure
indicative of a past merger event and to test the hypothesis that the
elliptical hosts are the products of relatively recent merger events
rather than old galaxies which formed at high redshifts. By
establishing a firm connection between ancient mergers and the aging
starbursts in these classical QSOs, we will be able to estimate the
fraction of the total QSO population that results directly from
mergers accompanied by massive starbursts and to place constraints on
the duty cycle for QSO activity.

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 10503

The Star Formation Histories of Early Type Dwarf Galaxies in Low
Density Environments: Clues from the Sculptor Group

We seek HST ACS/WFC time to conduct a detailed study of the stellar
populations of 5 early-type {dE, dE/dIrr} dwarf galaxies in the nearby
{~1.5 to 4 Mpc} Sculptor group. Four of these systems have been
recently found to contain modest amounts of HI, and existing
ground-based and HST snapshot data point to the potential presence of
small populations of young {blue} stars in at least three of these
systems. Consequently, they resemble the Local Group 'transition'
objects Phoenix and LGS3. The relative number of such transition
systems is thus substantially larger in the low density environment of
the Scl group than for the Local Group. Detailed stellar populations
studies will allow estimation of the star formation histories, via
stellar population modelling of the color- magnitude diagrams, of the
target dwarfs, which in turn will connect to gas consumption and
retention rates. For the two nearer dwarfs we aim to reach below the
horizontal branch {a first for any system beyond the Local Group}
equivalent to a main sequence turnoff age of ~1 Gyr. The observations
of these two systems will also allow detection of RR Lyrae variables
and thus direct confirmation of the presence of old populations. For
the other three dwarfs will we cover the first 2.5 mags of the red
giant branch, equivalent to the main sequence termination for a ~300
Myr population. The results will have implications for theories of
galaxy formation and evolution, particularly with regard to the
evolutionary relation between low luminosity dEs and dwarf irregulars.

NIC1/NIC2/NIC3 8794

NICMOS Post-SAA calibration - CR Persistence Part 5

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.

FLIGHT OPERATIONS SUMMARY:

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

HSTARS:

10359 - GSacq(1,3,1) not attempted, open loop timer expired @195/0037z

GSacq(1,3,1) at 195/00:40:00 was not attempted due to open loop timer
expiration. ESB 1806 (T2G Open Loop Timeout) was received at 00:36:38,
causing a transition to M2G mode. OBAD prior to GSAcq at 195/00:21:28
showed errors of -31.84, 29.72, -21.42, RSS= 48.57. OBAD after GSACQ
at 01:14:36 showed errors of -564.91, -74.65, 205.98, RSS= 605.91.
Real Time OBAD was executed at 01:52, errors were -586.19, -80.10,
187.81, RSS= 620.73. REACQ(1,3,1) at 02:14:45 failed due to search
radius limit exceeded on FGS 1 at 02:20:24. Observations affected: ACS
199 TO 209, NICMOS 14 TO 30.

10360 - REACQ(1,3,1) failed, FGS1 search radius exceeded @195/0220z

REACQ(1,3,1) at 02:14:45 failed due to search radius limit exceeded on
FGS 1 at 02:20:24. Real Time OBAD was executed at 01:52 due to failure
of previous GSACQ, errors were -586.19, -80.10, 187.81, RSS= 620.73.
Observations affected: ACS 199 TO 209, NICMOS 14 TO 30.

COMPLETED OPS REQUEST:
17818-0 Battery 3 Capacity Test Script & 5 Battery Pressure Limit COP
(thru step 43) @ 194/1537z
17815-0 Continuous Engineering Recording for Battery 3 BCT @194/1559z
17832-0 Real Time OBAD @195/0153z


COMPLETED OPS NOTES: (None)

SCHEDULED SUCCESSFUL FAILURE TIMES
FGS GSacq 6 5 195/0037z
(HSTAR#10359)
FGS REacq 6 5 195/0220z
(HSTAR#10360)
OBAD with Maneuver 22 22


SIGNIFICANT EVENTS:

Battery 3 Capacity Flash Report #2

The Battery 3 Capacity test recovery period began at approximately
2006/194 12:45 GMT (8:45 am local) with the batteries charging at the
K1L4 equivalent. EPS SEs monitored the system for 2 orbits after
placing the battery back on-line in H/W and observed nominal system
performance. Battery 3 is recovering as expected and battery
temperatures have not exceed 1.04 DegC thus far in the recovery.
Battery 3 is still scheduled to be placed back on-line in a 6-Battery
FSW configuration on 195/14:00 GMT (Friday, July 14th at 10:00 am
local).

 




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