HST Daily Report # 3291

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

DAILY REPORT        # 3291

PERIOD COVERED: DOY 30

OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED

NICMOS 8790

NICMOS Post-SAA calibration – CR Persistence Part 1.

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.

ACS/WFC 9433

The Size Distribution of Kuiper Belt Bodies

The Kuiper Belt is a population of remnant planetesimals from the
formation of
the Solar System. Since the planetesimals in extrasolar systems are too
faint to
see with present or planned telescopes, the Kuiper Belt is our best
chance to
test models of accretional/collisional evolution against observations.
Current
ground-based observations of Kuiper Belt Objects {KBOs} are consistent
with a
pure power law size distribution N{D}propto D^-q, q~4.3. Current
accretion
models predict a break to a shallower slope q=3.5 for objects of diameter
D<~100 km. We will conduct a survey of 6 ACS/WFC fields to detect KBOs with R<28.5, and diameters as small as D~10 km. The number of KBOs at these small sizes, unmeasurable from the ground, will test the existence of the predicted break with 95% confidence---we expect between 12 and 50 detections. A census of small KBOs is also important in confirming the idea that short-period comets are errant KBOs. With HST and ground- based followup, we can determine orbital parameters for the detected KBOs, and search for dynamical populations which may be deficient in D>100 km KBOs and hence not yet detected. In particular,
we
will
determine whether the current absence of objects with perihelia beyond 50
AU is
due to a truncation of the protoplanetary disk at some point in Solar
System
history, or just a failure to accrete D>150 km objects.

WFPC2 9594

WFPC2 CYCLE 11 SUPPLEMENTAL DARKS pt2/3

This dark calibration program obtains 3 dark frames every day to provide
data
for monitoring and characterizing the evolution of hot pixels

STIS 9605

CCD Dark Monitor-Part 1

Monitor the darks for the STIS CCD

STIS 9607

CCD Bias Monitor – Part 1

Monitor the bias in the 1×1, 1×2, 2×1, and 2×2 bin settings at gain=1,
and 1×1
at gain = 4, to build up high-S/N superbiases and track the evolution of
hot
columns.

ACS 9673

CCD Daily Monitor

This program consists of basic tests to monitor, the read noise, the
development
of hot pixels and test for any source of noise in ACS CCD detectors. This
programme will be executed once a day for the entire lifetime of ACS

WFPC2 9676

POMS Test Proposal: WFII parallel archive proposal

This is the generic target version of the WFPC2 Archival Pure Parallel
program.
The program will be used to take parallel images of random areas of the
sky,
following the recommendations of the 2002 Parallels Working Group.

NICMOS 9702

NICMOS Parallel Thermal Background

NICMOS Camera 2 pure parallel exposures in the F222M and F237M filters to
establish the stability of the HST+NCS+Instrument thermal emission. This
data
will be compared against the already available Camera 3 measurements in
F222M
which show an increased thermal background.

STIS 9706

STIS Pure Parallel Imaging Program: Cycle 10

This is the default archival pure parallel program for STIS during cycle
10.

FLIGHT OPERATIONS SUMMARY:

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

COMPLETED OPS REQs:
16909-1 FHST Mapping @030/1756z
16910-1 FHST Mapping @031/0145z

OPS NOTES EXECUTED: None

                       SCHEDULED     SUCCESSFUL    FAILURE TIMES
FGS GSacq            6                         6
FGS REacq            12                       12
FHST Update          5                         5
LOSS of LOCK

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: None