Date: December 6th 2006

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science

DAILY REPORT # 4252

PERIOD COVERED: UT December 04, 2006 (DOY 338)

OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED

ACS/HRC 11041

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 For cycle 15 the program will cover 18 months 12 1 06->05 31 08 and it has been divied into three different proposals each covering six months The three proposals are 11041-11042-11043

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}

FGS 11021

HST Pre-SM4 Focal Plane Alignment & ACS Absolute Scale

This proposal will determine and monitor the FGSs and SI positions and orientations in V2,V3 space Accuracy goals are < 50 mas for position and between 0 04 and 0 004 degrees for angle {depending on SI} An astrometric open cluster {M35} is observed using guidestars with positions determined to ~ 20 mas One or more astrometric targets are placed in the available SIs' major channels as well as each FGS, and POS TARGs step the target{s} over a significant fraction of the detector This proposal will serve to update the FGS and SI positions and angles, which have trended, uncalibrated, since ~2002, at a rate between 0 1 and 0 2 arcseconds or more per year This will execute before 22 December 2006 A single orbit visit will execute later but before SM4/SMOV and will only include position/angle checks of any SI trends and not contain the more costly FGS-FGS alignment, which will need to be performed during SM4/SMOV Finally, a special visit is included in this proposal which will yield the absolute scale of ACS/WFC with an accuracy of ~2x10-5 by observing a subset of M35 astrometric cluster members with relative positions known to < 1 mas and absolute separations known to ~2x10-5 {via FGS calibrations over mission life} This transfers the well-determined FGS absolute scale knowledge onto ACS/WFC, with the goal of then impressing that calibration onto an HST-JWST common field {e g LMC} in order to support JWST calibration requirements

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

NIC2, ACS/WFC 10802

SHOES-Supernovae, HO, for the Equation of State of Dark energy

The present uncertainty in the value of the Hubble constant {resulting in an uncertainty in Omega_M} and the paucity of Type Ia supernovae at redshifts exceeding 1 are now the leading obstacles to determining the nature of dark energy We propose a single, integrated set of observations for Cycle 15 that will provide a 40% improvement in constraints on dark energy This program will observe known Cepheids in six reliable hosts of Type Ia supernovae with NICMOS, reducing the uncertainty in H_0 by a factor of two because of the smaller dispersion along the instability strip, the diminished extinction, and the weaker metallicity dependence in the infrared In parallel with ACS, at the same time the NICMOS observations are underway, we will discover and follow a sample of Type Ia supernovae at z > 1 Together, these measurements, along with prior constraints from WMAP, will provide a great improvement in HST's ability to distinguish between a static, cosmological constant and dynamical dark energy The Hubble Space Telescope is the only instrument in the world that can make these IR measurements of Cepheids beyond the Local Group, and it is the only telescope in the world that can be used to find and follow supernovae at z > 1 Our program exploits both of these unique capabilities of HST to learn more about one of the greatest mysteries in science

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 11029

WFPC2 CYCLE 15 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 15 decon proposal xxxx 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: 10541 - GSACQ(1,3,1) failed, Search Radius Limit Exceeded on FGS 1 Upon acquisition of signal at 338:14:56:14 vehicle was in gyro control with FGS 1 search radius limit flag set GSACQ(1,3,1) at 338:14:37:35 apparently failed with search radius limit exceeded OBAD data prior to GSACQ showed RSS attitude correction of 4 19 arcseconds, OBAD map after GSACQ failure showed RSS error of 8 98 arcseconds 486 ESB status buffer A05 message (FGS Coarse Track failed- search Radius Limit exceeded) was NOT received QF2SSLEX flag was due to astrometry activities on FGS 2

COMPLETED OPS REQUEST: (None)

COMPLETED OPS NOTES: (None)

                     SCHEDULED      SUCCESSFUL

FGS GSacq 10 09 FGS REacq 02 02 OBAD with Maneuver 24 24

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: (None)

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