Instrument Science Report 2002-06:

Results of the Observatory Verification for WFPC2 after Servicing Mission 3B

A. M. Koekemoer, S. Gonzaga, I. Heyer, L. M. Lubin, V. Kozhurina-Platais, and B. Whitmore

October 7, 2002

Abstract:

Servicing Mission 3B (SM3B) took place in March 2002, and the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) resumed operations on March 23, 2002, after having been placed in an inactive mode during the Servicing Mission. We describe here the results from an extensive series of tests and observations that we carried out with WFPC2 as part of the subsequent Observatory Verification phase. These tests included UV monitoring of possible contamination, performance checks of the biases, darks and other internal calibrations, as well as PSF measurements and flatfield verification. The results from these tests show that there are no significant changes in the operational behavior of the camera with respect to its pre-SM3B performance.

The Complete Paper (PDF 2.14 MB) is available.