NASA Hubble Space Telescope Daily Report # 3757

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE – Continuing to collect World Class Science

DAILY REPORT        # 3757

PERIOD COVERED: DOY 350

OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED

ACS/HRC/NIC1/WFC 10190

The Star Formation History and Metallicity Evolution of M33: A
Comprehensive Study of Disk Evolution

We will obtain deep, panchromatic imaging photometry of stellar
populations in four fields ranging from 0.5 to 4 scale lengths across
the disk of the Local Group spiral M33. The observations are designed
to detect the oldest main-sequence turnoffs in three outer disk
fields, and to reach the crowding limit in the innermost field. We
will combine the photometry data with information we already have
in-hand on abundances from stars and H II regions in M33 to derive the
star formation history and metallicity evolution of the M33 disk. The
information from our four fields will allow us to obtain {1} the ages
of the oldest disk stars and the radial variation of their ages; {2}
the radial variation of the star formation history and its nature
{e.g., constant, declining, or bursting}; and {3} the metallicity
distribution in each field and the time evolution of the metallicity
gradient. Our team, an experienced mix of photometrists,
spectroscopists, and galaxy evolution theorists, will use the results
from this program to construct a comprehensive chemo- dynamical model
for the M33 disk. This detailed study of M33 will be a key in
developing an understanding of the formation and evolution of disks
that can be applied to studies of disks at both low and high redshift,
and will also yield a wealth of information on stellar populations,
chemical evolution, and star clusters that will be of great value to
future investigators.

ACS/HRC/WFC 10367

ACS CCDs daily monitor- cycle 13 – part 1

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.

ACS/WFC 10326

The Morphological, Photometric, and Spectroscopic Properties of
Intermediate Redshift Cluster Galaxies

We will use the ACS/WFC to image 8 fields in the outskirts of the
kT=5.8keV, X-ray cluster RX J0152-13 at z=0.83, for which we obtained
imaging in four central fields during Cycle 11. The resulting
wide-field mosaic of RX J0152-13 will enable direct study of the
population of galaxies falling into this cluster and will provide a
much needed comparison to our on-going wide-field study of the more
massive, 10.5keV cluster MS1054-03 at the same redshift. Imaging RX
J0152-13 to twice its viral radius enables us to: {1} trace the
transformation of infalling field spirals into cluster early-types
using, e.g., the morphology-density relation to large radii and very
low local densities; {2} determine the importance of galaxy-galaxy
interactions, i.e., whether the frequency of such encounters in the
infall region is as unexpectedly high as found in MS1054-03; and {3}
study in detail the star-formation histories of the most recently
accreted members via accurate colors and morphologies. A comparison of
RX J0152-13 with MS1054-03 will also allow us to directly probe the
dependence of galaxy evolution on cluster mass. Only by pairing the
wide-field ACS mosaic of RX J0152-13 with multi-object spectroscopy
from the Magellan, Keck, and VLT telescopes can we test predictions
from galaxy formation models, understand how field spirals evolve into
early-type cluster members, and better constrain the formation of
galaxies in general.

ACS/WFC/NIC3/WFPC2 10134

The Evolution and Assembly of Galactic Disks: Integrated studies of
mass, stars and gas in the Extended Groth Strip

This project is a 126-orbit imaging survey in F606W/F814W ACS to
measure the evolution of galaxy disks from redshift z = 1.4 to the
present. By combining HST imaging with existing observations in the
Extended Groth Strip, we can for the first time simultaneously
determine the mass in dark matter that underlies disks, the mass in
stars within those disks, and the rate of formation of new stars from
gas in the disks, for samples of >1, 000 objects. ACS observations are
critical for this work, both for reliable identifications of disks and
for determining their sizes and inclinations. Combining these data
with the kinematics measured from high-resolution Keck DEIMOS spectra
will give dynamical masses that include dark matter. Stellar masses
can be measured separately using ground-based BRIK and Spitzer IRAC
GTO data, while cross-calibrated star formation rates will come from
DEEP2 spectra, GALEX, and Spitzer/MIPS. The field chosen is the only
one where all multiwavelength data needed will be available in the
near term. These data will show how the fundamental properties of
disks {luminosity, rotation speed, scale length} and their scaling
relations have evolved since z~1, and also will measure the build-up
of stellar disks directly, providing fundamental tests of disk
formation and evolution. In addition to the above study of disk
galaxies, the data will also be used to measure the evolution of
red-sequence galaxies and their associated stellar populations. ACS
images will yield the number of red-sequence galaxies versus time,
together with their total associated stellar mass. ACS images are
crucial to classify red-sequence galaxies into normal E/S0s versus
peculiar types and to measure radii, which will complete the suite of
fundamental structural parameters needed to study evolution. We will
measure the zeropoints of major scaling laws {Fundamental Plane,
radius versus sigma}, as well as evolution in characteristic
quantities such as L*, v*, and r*. Stellar population ages will be
estimated from high-resolution Keck DEIMOS spectra and compared to SED
evolution measured from GALEX, HST, Spitzer, and ground-based colors.
Important for both disk and red-galaxy programs are parallel exposures
to be taken with both NIC3 {J and H} and WFPC2 {B}. These are arranged
so that ACS, WFPC2, and NIC3 all overlap where possible , providing a
rich data set of galaxies imaged with all three HST cameras from B to
H. These data will be used to measure restframe visible morphologies
and UV star-formation rates for galaxies near the edge of the survey,
to discover and count EROs below the Keck spectroscopic limit of R =
24, and to provide an improved database of photometric redshifts for
galaxies in the overlap regions.

ACS/WFC/WFPC2 10092

The COSMOS 2-Degree ACS Survey

We will undertake a 2 square degree imaging survey {Cosmic Evolution
Survey — COSMOS} with ACS in the I {F814W} band of the VIMOS
equatorial field. This wide field survey is essential to understand
the interplay between Large Scale Structure {LSS} evolution and the
formation of galaxies, dark matter and AGNs and is the one region of
parameter space completely unexplored at present by HST. The
equatorial field was selected for its accessibility to all
ground-based telescopes and low IR background and because it will
eventually contain ~100, 000 galaxy spectra from the VLT-VIMOS
instrument. The imaging will detect over 2 million objects with I> 27
mag {AB, 10 sigma}, over 35, 000 Lyman Break Galaxies {LBGs} and
extremely red galaxies out to z ~ 5. COSMOS is the only HST project
specifically designed to probe the formation and evolution of
structures ranging from galaxies up to Coma-size clusters in the epoch
of peak galaxy, AGN, star and cluster formation {z ~0.5 to 3}. The
size of the largest structures necessitate the 2 degree field. Our
team is committed to the assembly of several public ancillary datasets
including the optical spectra, deep XMM and VLA imaging, ground-based
optical/IR imaging, UV imaging from GALEX and IR data from SIRTF.
Combining the full-spectrum multiwavelength imaging and spectroscopic
coverage with ACS sub-kpc resolution, COSMOS will be Hubble’s ultimate
legacy for understanding the evolution of both the visible and dark
universe.

NIC/NIC3 10226

The NICMOS Grism Parallel Survey

We propose to continue managing the NICMOS pure parallel program.
Based on our experience, we are well prepared to make optimal use of
the parallel opportunities. The improved sensitivity and efficiency of
our observations will substantially increase the number of
line-emitting galaxies detected. As our previous work has
demonstrated, the most frequently detected line is Halpha at
0.7< z< 1.9, which provides an excellent measure of current star formation rate. We will also detect star-forming and active galaxies in other redshift ranges using other emission lines. The grism observations will produce by far the best available Halpha luminosity functions over the crucial--but poorly observed--redshift range where galaxies appear to have assembled most of their stellar mass. This key process of galaxy evolution needs to be studied with IR data; we found that observations at shorter wavelengths appear to have missed a large fraction of the star-formation in galaxies, due to dust reddening. We will also obtain deep F110W and F160W images, to examine the space densities and morphologies of faint red galaxies. In addition to carrying out the public parallels, we will make the fully reduced and calibrated images and spectra available on-line, with some ground-based data for the deepest parallel fields included.

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.

NIC3 10337

The COSMOS 2-Degree ACS Survey NICMOS Parallels

The COSMOS 2-Degree ACS Survey NICMOS Parallels. This program is a
companion to program 10092.

FLIGHT OPERATIONS SUMMARY:

Significant Spacecraft Anomalies: (The following are preliminary
reports of potential non-nominal performance that will be
investigated.) None

COMPLETED OPS REQs: None

OPS NOTES EXECUTED: None

                        SCHEDULED     SUCCESSFUL    FAILURE TIMES 
FGS Gsacq              11                        11 
FGS Reacq              05                         05 
FHST Update            12                        12 
LOSS of LOCK 

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: None