Date: July 23rd 2010

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Daily Report #5142 - 1 messages, 1 author http://groups google com/group/sci astro hubble/t/5d7f4a3cadc34dd3?hl=en
Daily Report #5143 - 1 messages, 1 author http://groups google com/group/sci astro hubble/t/1e70a960d2b675f4?hl=en

============================================================================== TOPIC: Daily Report #5142

http://groups google com/group/sci astro hubble/t/5d7f4a3cadc34dd3?hl=en

== 1 of 1 == Date: Wed, Jul 21 2010 8:14Ã‚Â am From: "Bassford, Lynn"

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

============================================================================== TOPIC: Daily Report #5143

http://groups google com/group/sci astro hubble/t/1e70a960d2b675f4?hl=en

== 1 of 1 == Date: Thurs, Jul 22 2010 6:38Ã‚Â am From: "Bassford, Lynn"

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to Collect World Class Science

DAILY REPORT #5143

PERIOD COVERED: 5am July 21 - 5am July 22, 2010 (DOY 202/09:00z-203/09:00z)

FLIGHT OPERATIONS SUMMARY:

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

HSTARS: (None)

COMPLETED OPS REQUEST: (None)

COMPLETED OPS NOTES: (None)

                   SCHEDULED      SUCCESSFUL

FGS GSAcq 7 7 FGS REAcq 9 9 OBAD with Maneuver 3 3

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: (None)

OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED:

ACS/WFC 11996

CCD Daily Monitor (Part 3)

This program comprises basic tests for measuring the read noise and dark current of the ACS WFC and for tracking the growth of hot pixels The recorded frames are used to create bias and dark reference images for science data reduction and calibration This program will be executed four days per week (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun) for the duration of Cycle 17 To facilitate scheduling, this program is split into three proposals This proposal covers 308 orbits (19 25 weeks) from 21 June 2010 to 1 November 2010

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/CC/MA 11668

Cosmo-chronometry and Elemental Abundance Distribution of the Ancient Star HE1523-0901

We propose to obtain near-UV HST/STIS spectroscopy of the extremely metal-poor, highly r-process-enhanced halo star HE 1523-0901, in order to produce the most complete abundance distribution of the heaviest stable elements, including platinum, osmium, and lead These HST abundance data will then be used to estimate the initial abundances of the long-lived radioactive elements thorium and uranium, and by comparison with their observed abundances, enable an accurate age determination of this ancient star The use of radioactive chronometers in stars provides an independent lower limit on the age of the Galaxy, which can be compared with alternative limits set by globular clusters and by analysis from WMAP Our proposed observations of HE1523-0901 will also provide significant new information about the early chemical history of the Galaxy, specifically, the nature of the first generations of stars and the types of nucleosynthetic processes that occurred at the onset of Galactic chemical evolution

STIS/MA1/MA2 11857

STIS Cycle 17 MAMA Dark Monitor

This proposal monitors the behavior of the dark current in each of the MAMA detectors

The basic monitor takes two 1380s ACCUM darks each week with each detector However, starting Oct 5, pairs are only included for weeks that the LRP has external MAMA observations planned The weekly pairs of exposures for each detector are linked so that they are taken at opposite ends of the same SAA free interval This pairing of exposures will make it easier to separate long and short term temporal variability from temperature dependent changes

For both detectors, additional blocks of exposures are taken once every six months These are groups of five 1314s FUV-MAMA Time-Tag darks or five 3x315s NUV ACCUM darks distributed over a single SAA-free interval This will give more information on the brightness of the FUV MAMA dark current as a function of the amount of time that the HV has been on, and for the NUV MAMA will give a better measure of the short term temperature dependence

WFC3/UV/ACS/WFC/IR 12058

A Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury - I

We propose to image the north east quadrant of M31 to deep limits in the UV, optical, and near-IR HST imaging should resolve the galaxy into more than 100 million stars, all with common distances and foreground extinctions UV through NIR stellar photometry (F275W, F336W with WFC3/UVIS, F475W and F814W with ACS/WFC, and F110W and F160W with WFC3/NIR) will provide effective temperatures for a wide range of spectral types, while simultaneously mapping M31's extinction Our central science drivers are to: understand high-mass variations in the stellar IMF as a function of SFR intensity and metallicity; capture the spatially-resolved star formation history of M31; study a vast sample of stellar clusters with a range of ages and metallicities These are central to understanding stellar evolution and clustered star formation; constraining ISM energetics; and understanding the counterparts and environments of transient objects (novae, SNe, variable stars, x-ray sources, etc ) As its legacy, this survey adds M31 to the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds as a fundamental calibrator of stellar evolution and star-formation processes for understanding the stellar populations of distant galaxies Effective exposure times are 977s in F275W, 1368s in F336W, 4040s in F475W, 4042s in F814W, 699s in F110W, and 1796s in F160W, including short exposures to avoid saturation of bright sources These depths will produce photon-limited images in the UV Images will be crowding-limited in the optical and NIR, but will reach below the red clump at all radii The images will reach the Nyquist sampling limit in F160W, F475W, and F814W

WFC3/UVI 11615

Hunting for Optical Companions to Binary MSPs in Globular Clusters

Here we present a proposal which exploits the renewed potential of HST after the Service Mission 4 for probing the population of binary Millisecond Pulsars (MSPs) in Globular Clusters In particular we intend to: (1) extend the search for optical counterparts in Terzan 5, by pushing the performance of the WFC3 IR channel to sample the entire MS extension down to M=0 1 Mo; (2) perform a deep multi-band search of MSP companions with the WFC3, in 3 clusters (namely NGC6440, M28 and M5), where recent radio observations have found particularly interesting objects; (3) derive an accurate radial velocity (with STIS) of the puzzling optical companion COM6266B recently discovered by our group, to firmly assess its cluster membership This program is the result of a large collaboration among the three major groups (lead by Freire, Ransom and Possenti) which are performing extensive MSP search in GCs in the radio bands, and our group which has a large experience in performing accurate stellar photometry in crowded environments This collaboration has produced a number of outstanding discoveries In fact, three of the 6 optical counterparts to binary MSP companions known to date in GCs have been discovered by our group The observations here proposed would easily double/triple the existing sample of known MSP companions, allowing the first meaningful approach to the study of the formation, evolution and recycling process of pulsar in GCs Moreover, since most of binary MSPs in GCs are thought to form via stellar interactions in the high density core regions, the determination of the nature of the companion and the incidence of this collisionally-induced population has a significant impact on our knowledge of the cluster dynamics Even more interesting, the study of the optical companions to NSs in GCs allows one to derive tighter constraints (than those obtainable for NS binaries in the Galactic field) on the system properties This has, in turn, an intrinsic importance for fundamental physics, since it offers the opportunity of measuring the mass of the NS and hence constraining the equation of state of matter at the nuclear equilibrium density

WFC3/UVIS 11907

UVIS Cycle 17 Contamination Monitor

The UV throughput of WFC3 during Cycle 17 is monitored via weekly standard star observations in a subset of key filters covering 200-600nm and F606W, F814W as controls on the red end The data will provide a measure of throughput levels as a function of time and wavelength, allowing for detection of the presence of possible contaminants

WFC3/UVIS/IR 11909

UVIS Hot Pixel Anneal

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