HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science DAILY REPORT        # 4179 PERIOD COVERED: UT August 16, 2006 (DOY 228) OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED ACS/HRC 10870 The Ring Plane Crossings of Uranus in 2007 The rings of Uranus turn edge-on to Earth in May and August 2007. In between, we will have a rare opportunity to see the unlit face of the rings. With the nine optically thick rings essentially invisible, we will observe features and phenomena that are normally lost in ...Continue Reading

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science DAILY REPORT # 4178 PERIOD COVERED: UT August 15, 2006 (DOY 227) OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED ACS/HRC 10909 Exploring the diversity of cosmic explosions: The supernovae of gamma-ray bursts While the connection between gamma-ray bursts {GRBs} and supernovae {SNe} is now clearly established, there is a large variety of observational properties among these SNe and the physical parameters of these explosions are poorly known. As part of a comprehensi ...Continue Reading

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science DAILY REPORT # 4177 PERIOD COVERED: UT August 14, 2006 (DOY 226) 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 ...Continue Reading

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science DAILY REPORT # 4176 PERIOD COVERED: UT August 11,12,13, 2006 (DOY 223,224.225) OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED 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 ...Continue Reading

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science DAILY REPORT # 4175 PERIOD COVERED: UT August 10, 2006 (DOY 222) OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED ACS/HRC 10860 The largest Kuiper belt object The past year has seen an explosion in the discoveries of Pluto-sized objects in the Kuiper belt. With the discoveries of the methane-covered 2003 UB313 and 2005 FY9, the multiple satellite system of 2003 EL61, and the Pluto-Charon analog system of Orcus and its satellite, it is finally apparent that Pluto is ...Continue Reading

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science DAILY REPORT # 4174 PERIOD COVERED: UT August 09, 2006 (DOY 221) 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 ...Continue Reading

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science DAILY REPORT # 4173 PERIOD COVERED: UT August 08, 2006 (DOY 220) OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED ACS/WFC 10546 The filaments of NGC1275 The spectacular H-0alpha filaments stretching over 100 kpc around the central galaxy in the nearby Perseus cluster of galaxies, NGC1275, resemble those found around distant radio galaxies and some protogalaxies. The origin and ionization of the filaments are poorly understood and relate to heating and cooling proces ...Continue Reading

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science DAILY REPORT # 4172 PERIOD COVERED: UT August 07, 2006 (DOY 219) OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED ACS/WFC 10880 The host galaxies of QSO2s: AGN feeding and evolution at high luminosities Now that the presence of supermassive black holes in the nuclei of galaxies is a well established fact, other questions related to the AGN phenomena still have to be answered. Problems of particular interest are how the AGN gets fed, how the black hole evolves and how ...Continue Reading

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science DAILY REPORT # 4171 PERIOD COVERED: UT August 4,5,6, 2006 (DOY 216,217,218) OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED 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 p ...Continue Reading

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - Continuing to collect World Class Science DAILY REPORT # 4170 PERIOD COVERED: UT August 3, 2006 (DOY 215) 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 di ...Continue Reading