Date: December 20th 2006

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science

DAILY REPORT # 4262

PERIOD COVERED: UT December 18, 2006 (DOY 352)

OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED

ACS/HRC 10800

Kuiper Belt Binaries: Probes of Early Solar System Evolution

Binaries in the Kuiper Belt are a scientific windfall: in them we have relatively fragile test particles which can be used as tracers of the early dynamical evolution of the outer Solar System We propose to continue a Snapshot program using the ACS/HRC that has a demonstrated discovery potential an order of magnitude higher than the HST observations that have already discovered the majority of known transneptunian binaries With this continuation we seek to reach the original goals of this project: to accumulate a sufficiently large sample in each of the distinct populations collected in the Kuiper Belt to be able to measure, with statistical significance, how the fraction of binaries varies as a function of their particular dynamical paths into the Kuiper Belt Today's Kuiper Belt bears the imprints of the final stages of giant-planet building and migration; binaries may offer some of the best preserved evidence of that long-ago era

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 proposal each covering six months The three proposals are 11041-11042-11043

ACS/HRC/WFPC2/NIC3 10842

A Cepheid Distance to the Coma Cluster

We propose to use the Advanced Camera for Surveys to search for Cepheid variables in two spiral galaxies in the core of the Coma cluster A direct application of the canonical primary distance indicator at 100 Mpc will measure the far-field Hubble constant free of many of the systematic uncertainties which beset current determinations relying on secondary indicators Establishing the far-field H_o with Cepheids will provide one of the strongest links in the extragalactic distance scale and will directly calibrate the fiducial fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies in Coma With ACS/HRC, S/N=5 to 10 or better can be reached for Cepheids with periods of 40d to 70d at mean light in 5 orbits with the F606W filter if H_o=72 km/s/Mpc Efficient detection and phasing can be done with twelve epochs optimally spaced for periods of 40-70d

ACS/WFC 10886

The Sloan Lens ACS Survey: Towards 100 New Strong Lenses

As a continuation of the highly successful Sloan Lens ACS {SLACS} Survey for new strong gravitational lenses, we propose one orbit of ACS-WFC F814W imaging for each of 50 high- probability strong galaxy-galaxy lens candidates These observations will confirm new lens systems and permit immediate and accurate photometry, shape measurement, and mass modeling of the lens galaxies The lenses delivered by the SLACS Survey all show extended source structure, furnishing more constraints on the projected lens potential than lensed-quasar image positions In addition, SLACS lenses have lens galaxies that are much brighter than their lensed sources, facilitating detailed photometric and dynamical observation of the former When confirmed lenses from this proposal are combined with lenses discovered by SLACS in Cycles 13 and 14, we expect the final SLACS lens sample to number 80--100: an approximate doubling of the number of known galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses and an order-of-magnitude increase in the number of optical Einstein rings By virtue of its homogeneous selection and sheer size, the SLACS sample will allow an unprecedented exploration of the mass structure of the early-type galaxy population as a function of all other observable quantities This new sample will be a valuable resource to the astronomical community by enabling qualitatively new strong lensing science, and as such we will waive all but a short {3-month} proprietary period on the observations

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

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 10915

ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey

Existing HST observations of nearby galaxies comprise a sparse and highly non-uniform archive, making comprehensive comparative studies among galaxies essentially impossible We propose to secure HST's lasting impact on the study of nearby galaxies by undertaking a systematic, complete, and carefully crafted imaging survey of ALL galaxies in the Local Universe outside the Local Group The resulting images will allow unprecedented measurements of: {1} the star formation history {SFH} of a >100 Mpc^3 volume of the Universe with a time resolution of Delta[log{t}]=0 25; {2} correlations between spatially resolved SFHs and environment; {3} the structure and properties of thick disks and stellar halos; and {4} the color distributions, sizes, and specific frequencies of globular and disk clusters as a function of galaxy mass and environment To reach these goals, we will use a combination of wide-field tiling and pointed deep imaging to obtain uniform data on all 72 galaxies within a volume-limited sample extending to ~3 5 Mpc, with an extension to the M81 group For each galaxy, the wide-field imaging will cover out to ~1 5 times the optical radius and will reach photometric depths of at least 2 magnitudes below the tip of the red giant branch throughout the limits of the survey volume One additional deep pointing per galaxy will reach SNR~10 for red clump stars, sufficient to recover the ancient SFH from the color-magnitude diagram This proposal will produce photometric information for ~100 million stars {comparable to the number in the SDSS survey} and uniform multi-color images of half a square degree of sky The resulting archive will establish the fundamental optical database for nearby galaxies, in preparation for the shift of high-resolution imaging to the near-infrared

FLIGHT OPERATIONS SUMMARY:

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

HSTARS: 10562 - REacq(2,3,3) failed to RGA control REacq(2,3,3) scheduled at 352/16:21:21 failed due to scan step limit exceeded on FGS 2 at 16:24:48 OBAD1 showed errors of V1=-40 59, V2=-1307 41, V3=-26 53, RSS=1308 31 OBAD2 showed error of V1=-2 46, V2=14 48, V3=-1 97, RSS=14 82

COMPLETED OPS REQUEST: (None)

COMPLETED OPS NOTES: (None)

                     SCHEDULED      SUCCESSFUL

FGS GSacq 06 06 FGS REacq 08 07 OBAD with Maneuver 28 28

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: (None)

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