Status Report

Hubble Space Telescope Daily Report #3112 – 9 May 2002

By SpaceRef Editor

May 9, 2002

Filed under Hubble Space Telescope, Space Telescope Science Institute, US

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

DAILY REPORT # 3112

PERIOD COVERED: 0000Z (UTC) DOY 128 – 0000Z (UTC) DOY 129

OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED AND ACCOMPLISHED:

8902 STIS/CCD

Completed STIS/CCD 8902 (Dark Monitor-Part 2).The Space Telescope Imaging
Spectrograph (CCD) was used
to monitor the darks. No problems were reported.

8904 STIS/CCD

Completed STIS/CCD 8904 (Bias Monitor-Part 2). The Space Telescope
Imaging Spectrograph (CCD) was used
to 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 in order
to build up high-S/N superbiases and track the evolution of hot
columns. The proposal completed with
no anomalous activity.

8914 STIS/CCD

Completed STIS/CCD 8914 (Sensitivity Monitor C10)The Space Telescope
Imaging Spectrograph (CCD) was
used to monitor the sensitivity of each CCD grating mode to detect any
change due to contamination or
other causes. The STIS focus is also monitored in an imaging
mode. There was no anomalous activity.

8938 WFPC2

Completed WFPC2 8938 (WFPC2 CYCLE 9 SUPPLEMENTAL DARKS pt3/3)This dark
calibration program obtains 3
dark frames every day to provide data for monitoring and characterizing
the evolution of hot pixels

8940 WF/PC-2

Completed WF/PC-2 8940 (Cycle 10 Earth Flats)The WF/PC-2 was used to
monitor flatfield stability by
obtaining sequences of Earth streak flats to construct high quality flat
fields for the WF/PC-2 filter
set. These flat fields will allow mapping of the OTA illumination
pattern and will be used in
conjunction with previous internal and external flats to generate new
pipeline superflats. The
proposal completed without incident

8947 ACS/WFC/HRC

Completed ACS/WFC/HRC 8947 (Weekly Test).The Advanced Camera for Surveys
(WFC and HRC) was used to
perform basic tests to monitor, the read noise, the development of hot
pixels and test for any source
of noise in ACS CCD detectors. This program will be executed at least
once a day for the entire
lifetime of ACS. There were no problems reported.

8995 FGS/2/3

Completed FGS/2/3 8995 (Verification of Operational FGS Calibrations).
Fine Guidance Sensors #2 and #3
were used to monitor the characteristics of HST’s Fine Guidance Sensors
across the boundary of the
servicing mission SM3B and compares the data with pre-SM3B baseline
characterizations. For each FGS,
stars from a selected field in the standard astrometric Galactic cluster
M35 are observed in Position
mode. This provides a measurement of their relative positions, which in
turn provides an effective
means to detect and monitor any changes in the FGS optical distortions
and plate scales. These
observations will obtain S-curves at the center of each FGS FOV. If
changes larger than tolerance are
observed, it will be necessary to activate the appropriate contingency
proposal that will obtain data
for new S-curves. These data will also be used to re-compute the optimal
values of parameters, or
K-factors, that are used in the acquisition and tracking of guide stars
{and astrometry targets}. The
proposal completed with no reported problems.

9018 ACS/WFC

Completed ACS/WFC 9018 (Flat Field Stability).The Advanced Camera for
Surveys (WFC) was used to assess
the stability and uniformity of the low-frequency flat fields {L-flat} of
the WFC detector by using
multiple pointing observations of the globular clusters 47 Tucanae
{NGC104}, thus imaging moderately
dense stellar fields. By placing the same star over different portions
of the detectors and measuring
relative changes in its brightness it will be possible to determine local
variations in the response of
the detectors. There were no reported problems.

9074 STIS/CCD

Completed STIS/CCD 9074 (The Origin and Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts).The
Space Telescope Imaging
Spectrograph (CCD) was used to make observations that will provide the
most stringent tests yet
performed of the hypothesis that GRBs are powered by the collapse of
massive stars. STIS CCD
spectroscopy will be used to detect broad atomic features of supernovae
underlying GRB optical
transients, at flux levels more than a factor of three fainter than SN
1998bw. All observations
completed nominally.

9272 STIS

Revealing the Nature of the X-ray Absorption in NGC 4151. We propose
simultaneous Chandra and HST/STIS
observations of NGC 4151 to detect the X-ray absorption lines, determine
the ionization state, column,
and kinematics of the X-ray absorbers, and determine the connection to
the UV absorbers.

9292 ACS/HRC/WFC

Completed ACS/HRC/WFC 9292 (The Nature of Galaxies at z > 4).The Advanced
Camera for Surveys (HRC and
WFC) was used to further look into recent discoveries of a number of
galaxies and quasars at redshifts
greater than 5 that has identified the z>5-6 epoch as key to
understanding the earliest formation
phases for galaxies. However, establishing the characteristics and
properties of these earliest
galaxies is proving to be a particularly difficult. They are faint, with
I{AB} magnitudes around
26-27. Thus, substantial investments of time are needed to obtain high
S/N images, while ground-based
spectroscopy, even with 8-10 m class telescopes, has provided little more
than redshifts. Establishing
the physical properties of these galaxies will be a challenge for the
foreseeable future. However,
there is a subset of this high redshift population that is amenable to
more detailed study. These are
sources that have been strongly lensed by low redshift clusters. No
problems were reported.

9317 STIS/CCD

Completed STIS/CCD 9317 (Pure Parallel Imaging Program: Cycle 10).The
Space Telescope Imaging
Spectrograph (CCD) was used to perform the default archival pure parallel
program for STIS during cycle
10. There were no reported problems.

9318 WF/PC-2

Completed WF/PC-2 9318 (POMS Test Proposal: WFII Parallel Archive
Proposal Continuation).The WF/PC-2
was used to perform the generic target version of the WFPC2 Archival Pure
Parallel program. The
program was used to take parallel images of random areas of the sky,
following the recommendations of
the Parallels Working Group. There were no reported problems.

9575 ACS/WFC

Completed ACS/WFC 9575 (Default {Archival} Pure Parallel Program).The
Advanced Camera for Surveys (WFC)
was used to test ACS pure parallels in POMS. There were no reported
problems.

FLIGHT OPERATIONS SUMMARY:

Guide Star Acquisitions:

Scheduled Acquisitions: 7

Successful: 7

Scheduled Re-acquisitions 9

Successful: 9

FHST Updates:

Scheduled: 14

Successful: 13 (FHST Update failure @129/02:07:57z)

Loss of lock: none

Operations Notes:

HSTAR 8638 FHST Map Attitude for LBBIAS Incorrect @ 107/00:11:00z. Under
investigation.