1.1 About this Document

The Hubble Space Telescope Primer for Cycle 21 is a companion document to the HST Call for Proposals¹. It provides an overview of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), with basic information about telescope operations, instrument capabilities, and technical aspects of the proposal preparation process. A thorough understanding of the material in this document is essential for the preparation of a competitive proposal.

This document is available as an online HTML document and a PDF file. The HTML version, optimized for online browsing, contains many links to additional information. The PDF version is optimized for printing, but online PDF readers have search capabilities for quick retrieval of specific information.

In a hardcopy printout of the PDF version, links to information on the Internet appear as underlined text. The URLs for those links are listed in Appendix D.

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The HST Call for Proposals discusses the policies and procedures for submitting a Phase I proposal for HST observing or archival research.