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Daily Report #5142



 
 
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Old July 21st 10, 04:14 PM posted to sci.astro.hubble
Bassford, Lynn
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Posts: 44
Default Daily Report #5142


HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to Collect World Class Science

DAILY REPORT #5142

PERIOD COVERED: 5am July 20 - 5am July 21, 2010 (DOY 201/09:00z-202/09:00z)

FLIGHT OPERATIONS SUMMARY:

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

HSTARS:

From DOY 188:

#12336 GSAcq(2,1,1) @188/14:11:27z required two attempts to achieve
CT-DV on FGS2. The acquisition was successful.

COMPLETED OPS REQUEST: (None)

COMPLETED OPS NOTES: (None)

SCHEDULED SUCCESSFUL
FGS GSAcq 5 5
FGS REAcq 11 11
OBAD with Maneuver 6 6

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: (None)


OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED:

ACS/WFC3 11833

Monitoring M31 for BHXNe

During A01-8 we found ~20 Black Hole X-ray Novae (BHXNe) in M31 using
Chandra, and with HST follow-up have estimated orbital periods for 8
of these. Observations are underway with HST to attempt to estimate
additional periods. We propose to continue this program concentrating
our scarce HST resources on a single transient which exceeds 1e38
erg/s. Only uninterrupted monitoring can yield the duty cycles and
long-term light curves of BHXNe (and other variables) in M31. Our
GO+GTO programs will have accumulated 790ks (ACIS+HRC) near the M31
bulge by the end of AO9, and total Chandra exposure on M31 is now
940ks. By continuing our monitoring program through AO12 we will reach
~950ks on the bulge and 1Msec total Chandra M31 exposure.

COS/FUV 11527

COS-GTO: An Absorption Study of Galactic Intermediate Velocity Clouds
Using Hot Stars in Globular Clusters

We shall use UV bright hot post-AGB stars located within the globular
clusters of NGC 5139, NGC 6752, NGC 7078, NGC 6205, NGC 5272 and NGC
1904 to sample the UV absorption properties of the intervening
line-of-sight interstellar gas. Such sight-lines pass through several
intermediate velocity clouds (IVC?s) thought to be located within 5
kpc of our Galaxy, thus allowing the physical and chemical state of
this gas to be probed and compared with the properties of interstellar
gas located in the galactic disk. Elemental abundances of the IVC gas
shall be derived in order to determine a possible origin for these
in-falling galactic satellite cloud structures.

COS/FUV 11686

The Cosmological Impact of AGN Outflows: Measuring Absolute Abundances
and Kinetic Luminosities

AGN outflows are increasingly invoked as a major contributor to the
formation and evolution of supermassive black holes, their host
galaxies, the surrounding IGM, and cluster cooling flows. Our HST/COS
proposal will determine reliable absolute chemical abundances in six
AGN outflows, which influences several of the processes mentioned
above. To date there is only one such determination, done by our team
on Mrk 279 using 16 HST/STIS orbits and 100 ksec of FUSE time. The
advent of COS and its high sensitivity allows us to choose among
fainter objects at redshifts high enough to preclude the need for
FUSE. This will allow us to determine the absolute abundances for six
AGN (all fainter than Mrk 279) using only 40 HST COS orbits. This will
put abundances studies in AGN on a firm footing, an elusive goal for
the past four decades. In addition, prior FUSE observations of four of
these targets indicate that it is probable that the COS observations
will detect troughs from excited levels of C III. These will allow us
to measure the distances of the outflows and thereby determine their
kinetic luminosity, a major goal in AGN feedback research.

We will use our state of the art column density extraction methods and
velocity-dependent photoionization models to determine the abundances
and kinetic luminosity. Previous AGN outflow projects suffered from
the constraints of deciding what science we could do using ONE of the
handful of bright targets that were observable. With COS we can choose
the best sample for our experiment. As an added bonus, most of the
spectral range of our targets has not been observed previously,
greatly increasing the discovery phase space.

STIS/CC 11845

CCD Dark Monitor Part 2

Monitor the darks for the STIS CCD.

STIS/CC 11847

CCD Bias Monitor-Part 2

Monitor the bias in the 1x1, 1x2, 2x1, and 2x2 bin settings at gain=1,
and 1x1 at gain = 4, to build up high-S/N superbiases and track the
evolution of hot columns.

STIS/CCD 11721

Verifying the Utility of Type Ia Supernovae as Cosmological Probes:
Evolution and Dispersion in the Ultraviolet Spectra

The study of distant type Ia supernova (SNe Ia) offers the most
practical and immediate discriminator between popular models of dark
energy. Yet fundamental questions remain over possible
redshift-dependent trends in their observed and intrinsic properties.
High-quality Keck spectroscopy of a representative sample of 36
intermediate redshift SNe Ia has revealed a surprising, and
unexplained, diversity in their rest-frame UV fluxes. One possible
explanation is hitherto undiscovered variations in the progenitor
metallicity. Unfortunately, this result cannot be compared to local UV
data as only two representative SNe Ia have been studied near maximum
light. Taking advantage of two new `rolling searches' and the
restoration of STIS, we propose a non-disruptive TOO campaign to
create an equivalent comparison local sample. This will allow us to
address possible evolution in the mean UV spectrum and its diversity,
an essential precursor to the study of SNe beyond z~1.

WFC3/IR 11712

Calibration of Surface Brightness Fluctuations for WFC3/IR

We aim to characterize galaxy surface brightness fluctuations (SBF),
and calibrate the SBF distance method, in the F110W and F160W filters
of the Wide Field Camera 3 IR channel. Because of the very high
throughput of F110W and the good match of F160W to the standard H
band, we anticipate that both of these filters will be popular choices
for galaxy observations with WFC3/IR. The SBF signal is typically an
order of magnitude brighter in the near-IR than in the optical, and
the characteristics (sensitivity, FOV, cosmetics) of the WFC3/IR
channel will be enormously more efficient for SBF measurements than
previously available near-IR cameras. As a result, our proposed SBF
calibration will allow accurate distance derivation whenever an
early-type or bulge-dominated galaxy is observed out to a distance of
150 Mpc or more (i.e., out to the Hubble flow) in the calibrated
passbands. For individual galaxy observations, an accurate distance is
useful for establishing absolute luminosities, black hole masses,
linear sizes, etc. Eventually, once a large number of galaxies have
been observed across the sky with WFC3/IR, this SBF calibration will
enable accurate mapping of the total mass density distribution in the
local universe using the data available in the HST archive. The
proposed observations will have additional important scientific value;
in particular, we highlight their usefulness for understanding the
nature of multimodal globular cluster color distributions in giant
elliptical galaxies.

WFC3/IR/S/C 11929

IR Dark Current Monitor

Analyses of ground test data showed that dark current signals are more
reliably removed from science data using darks taken with the same
exposure sequences as the science data, than with a single dark
current image scaled by desired exposure time. Therefore, dark current
images must be collected using all sample sequences that will be used
in science observations. These observations will be used to monitor
changes in the dark current of the WFC3-IR channel on a day-to-day
basis, and to build calibration dark current ramps for each of the
sample sequences to be used by Gos in Cycle 17. For each sample
sequence/array size combination, a median ramp will be created and
delivered to the calibration database system (CDBS).

WFC3/UVIS 11697

Proper Motion Survey of Classical and SDSS Local Group Dwarf Galaxies

Using the superior resolution of HST, we propose to continue our
proper motion survey of Galactic dwarf galaxies. The target galaxies
include one classical dwarf, Leo II, and six that were recently
identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data: Bootes I, Canes
Venatici I, Canes Venatici II, Coma Berenices, Leo IV, and Ursa Major
II. We will observe a total of 16 fields, each centered on a
spectroscopically-confirmed QSO. Using QSOs as standards of rest in
measuring absolute proper motions has proven to be the most accurate
and most efficient method. HST is our only option to quickly determine
the space motions of the SDSS dwarfs because suitable ground-based
imaging is only a few years old and such data need several decades to
produce a proper motion. The two most distant galaxies in our sample
will require time baselines of four years to achieve our goal of a
30-50 km/s uncertainty in the tangential velocity; given this and the
finite lifetime of HST, it is imperative that first-epoch observations
be taken in this cycle. The SDSS dwarfs have dramatically lower
surface brightnesses and luminosities than the classical dwarfs.
Proper motions are crucial for determining orbits of the galaxies and
knowing the orbits will allow us to test theories for the formation
and evolution of these galaxies and, more generally, for the formation
of the Local Group.

WFC3/UVIS 11905

WFC3 UVIS CCD Daily Monitor

The behavior of the WFC3 UVIS CCD will be monitored daily with a set
of full-frame, four-amp bias and dark frames. A smaller set of 2Kx4K
subarray biases are acquired at less frequent intervals throughout the
cycle to support subarray science observations. The internals from
this proposal, along with those from the anneal procedure (Proposal
11909), will be used to generate the necessary superbias and superdark
reference files for the calibration pipeline (CDBS).

WFC3/UVIS/IR 11644

A Dynamical-Compositional Survey of the Kuiper Belt: A New Window Into
the Formation of the Outer Solar System

The eight planets overwhelmingly dominate the solar system by mass,
but their small numbers, coupled with their stochastic pasts, make it
impossible to construct a unique formation history from the dynamical
or compositional characteristics of them alone. In contrast, the huge
numbers of small bodies scattered throughout and even beyond the
planets, while insignificant by mass, provide an almost unlimited
number of probes of the statistical conditions, history, and
interactions in the solar system. To date, attempts to understand the
formation and evolution of the Kuiper Belt have largely been dynamical
simulations where a hypothesized starting condition is evolved under
the gravitational influence of the early giant planets and an attempt
is made to reproduce the current observed populations. With little
compositional information known for the real Kuiper Belt, the test
particles in the simulation are free to have any formation location
and history as long as they end at the correct point. Allowing
compositional information to guide and constrain the formation,
thermal, and collisional histories of these objects would add an
entire new dimension to our understanding of the evolution of the
outer solar system. While ground based compositional studies have hit
their flux limits already with only a few objects sampled, we propose
to exploit the new capabilities of WFC3 to perform the first ever
large-scale dynamical-compositional study of Kuiper Belt Objects
(KBOs) and their progeny to study the chemical, dynamical, and
collisional history of the region of the giant planets. The
sensitivity of the WFC3 observations will allow us to go up to two
magnitudes deeper than our ground based studies, allowing us the
capability of optimally selecting a target list for a large survey
rather than simply taking the few objects that can be measured, as we
have had to do to date. We have carefully constructed a sample of 120
objects which provides both overall breadth, for a general
understanding of these objects, plus a large enough number of objects
in the individual dynamical subclass to allow detailed comparison
between and within these groups. These objects will likely define the
core Kuiper Belt compositional sample for years to come. While we have
many specific results anticipated to come from this survey, as with
any project where the field is rich, our current knowledge level is
low, and a new instrument suddenly appears which can exploit vastly
larger segments of the population, the potential for discovery -- both
anticipated and not -- is extraordinary.

WFC3/UVIS/IR 11909

UVIS Hot Pixel Anneal

The on-orbit radiation environment of WFC3 will continually generate
new hot pixels. This proposal performs the procedure required for
repairing those hot pixels in the UVIS CCDs. During an anneal, the
two-stage thermo-electric cooler (TEC) is turned off and the
four-stage TEC is used as a heater to bring the UVIS CCDs up to ~20
deg. C. As a result of the CCD warmup, a majority of the hot pixels
will be fixed; previous instruments such as WFPC2 and ACS have seen
repair rates of about 80%. Internal UVIS exposures are taken before
and after each anneal, to allow an assessment of the procedure's
effectiveness in WFC3, provide a check of bias, global dark current,
and hot pixel levels, as well as support hysteresis (bowtie)
monitoring and CDBS reference file generation. One IR dark is taken
after each anneal, to provide a check of the IR detector.

 




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