The Hubble Deep Field: Background

The Hubble Deep Field (HDF) is a Director's Discretionary program on HST in Cycle 5 to image a typical field at high galactic latitude in four wavelength passbands as deeply as reasonably possible. In order to optimize observing in the time available, a field in the northern continuous viewing zone (CVZ) was selected and images were taken for 10 consecutive days, or approximately 150 orbits. Shorter 1-orbit images were also obtained of the fields immediately adjacent to the primary HDF in order to facilitate spectroscopic follow-up by ground-based telescopes. The observations were carried out from 18-30 December 1995, and the data are available to the community for study.

HDF paper presented at Paris HST meeting (postscript).
Field selection.
Filter selection.
Flanking fields.
Scheduling details.
Parallel Observations.

Harry Ferguson ferguson@stsci.edu 1/14/96