NASA Hubble Space Telescope Daily Report #4810

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE DAILY REPORT #4810

Continuing to collect World Class Science

PERIOD COVERED: 5am March 12 – 5am March 13, 2009 (DOY 071/1000z-072/1000z)

OBSERVATIONS SCHEDULED

FGS 11785

Trigonometric Calibration of the Distance Scale for Classical Novae

The distance scale for classical novae is important for understanding the stellar physics of their thermonuclear runaways, their contribution to Galactic nucleosynthesis, and their use as extragalactic standard candles. Although it is known that there is a relationship between their absolute magnitudes at maximum light and their subsequent rates of decline–the well-known maximum-magnitude rate-of-decline (MMRD) relation–it is difficult to set the zero-point for the MMRD because of the very uncertain distances of Galactic novae.

We propose to measure precise trigonometric parallaxes for the quiescent remnants of the four nearest classical novae. We will use the Fine Guidance Sensors, which are proven to be capable of measuring parallaxes with errors of ~0.2 mas, well below what is possible from the ground.

WFPC2/ACS/SBC 11975

UV Light from Old Stellar Populations: a Census of UV Sources in Galactic Globular Clusters

In spite of the fact that HST has been the only operative high-resolution eye in the UV-window over the last 18 years, no homogeneous UV survey of Galactic globular clusters (GGCs) has been performed to date. In order to fill this gap in the stellar population studies, we propose a program that exploits the unique capability of the WFPC2 and the SBC in the far-/mid- UV for securing deep UV imaging of 46 GGCs. The proposed observations will allow to study with unprecedented accuracy the hottest GGC stars, comprising the extreme horizontal branch (HB) stars and their progeny (the so-called AGB-manque’, and Post-early AGB stars), and “exotic stellar populations” like the blue straggler stars and the interacting binaries. The targets have been selected to properly sample the GGC metallicity/structural parameter space, thus to unveil any possible correlation between the properties of the hot stellar populations and the cluster characteristics. In addition, most of the targets have extended HB “blue tails”, that can be properly studied only by means of deep UV observations, expecially in the far-UV filters like the F160BW, that is not foreseen on the WFC3. This data base is complemented with GALEX observations in the cluster outermost regions, thus allowing to investigate any possible trend of the UV-bright stellar types over the entire radial extension of the clusters. Although the hottest GGC stars are just a small class of “special” objects, their study has a broad relevance in the context of structure formation and chemical evolution in the early Universe, bringing precious information on the basic star formation processes and the origin of blue light from galaxies. Indeed, the proposed observations will provide the community with an unprecedented data set suitable for addressing a number of still open astrophysical questions, ranging from the main drivers of the HB morphology and the mass loss processes, to the origin of the UV upturn in elliptical galaxies, the dating of distant systems from integrated light, and the complex interplay between stellar evolution and dynamics in dense stellar aggregates. In the spirit of constructing a community resource, we entirely waive the proprietary period for these observations.

WFPC2 11987

The Recent Star Formation History of SINGS Galaxies

The Spitzer Legacy project SINGS provided a unique view of the current state of star formation and dust in a sample of galaxies of all Hubble types. This multi-wavelength view allowed the team to create current star formation diagnostics that are independent of the dust content and increased our understanding of the dust in galaxies. Even so, using the SINGS data alone we can only make rough estimates of the recent star formation history of these galaxies. The lack of U-band observations means that it is impossible to estimate the ages of young clusters. In addition, the low resolution of the Spitzer and ground-based observations means that what appear to be individual Spitzer sources can actually be composed of many individual clusters with varying ages. In this proposal we plan to address this missing area in SINGS by obtaining high-resolution WFPC2 UBVI observations to accurately find and determine the ages of the young stellar clusters in a subset of the SINGS galaxies. These observations will greatly enhance the legacy value of the SINGS observations while also directly answering questions pertaining to star formation in galaxies.

FLIGHT OPERATIONS SUMMARY:

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

HSTARS:

11720 – At 071/23:03:36, GSAcq(1,0,1) scheduled from 071/23:00:00 – 23:06:24 failed to RGA Hold due to (QF1STOPF) and (QSTOP) stop flag indications on FGS-1.

Observations affected: WFPC 136-140, Proposal ID# 11975

COMPLETED OPS REQUEST: (None)

COMPLETED OPS NOTES: (None)

                        SCHEDULED      SUCCESSFUL

FGS GSAcq               08                  07
FGS REAcq               06                  06
OBAD with Maneuver      28                  27

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: (None)