S T A N / W F P C 2 - Number 32, June 1998

CONTENTS:

• WFPC2 NEWS:
• WFPC2 Data Analysis Tutorial Issued
• New Drizzle Tutorial / Tasks Released
• Non-Proprietary WFPC2 Parallels During the Second NIC3 Campaign
• The Automatic Notification Tool (ANT)
• RECENT PREPRINTS
• APPENDIX: WFPC2 CONTACTS

WFPC2 Data Analysis Tutorial Issued:

by S. Gonzaga and the WFPC2 Group

A step-by-step tutorial for basic reduction of WFPC2 data has been developed by Shireen Gonzaga and the WFPC2 group. Topics include general issues such as retrieving the data from the archives, displaying the image, instructions for calibration and recalibration of the data, a section on photometry, and a listing of other sources of related information. This tutorial provides a more detailed, hands-on approach than the Data Handbook which was designed to provide a higher level summary of a much wider set of topics.

New Drizzle Tutorial / Tasks Released:

by A. Fruchter

A "beta" release of new tasks for the removal of cosmic rays from dithered data is now available. Associated with these tasks is an updated and enlarged version of the tutorial on removing cosmic rays from dithered data first published by Max Mutchler and Andy Fruchter in the 1997 Calibration Workshop. The tasks and the tutorial can be found in the "DitherII" section of "Andy's Dithering Page": www.stsci.edu/~fruchter/dither.

Non-Proprietary WFPC2 Parallels During the Second NIC3 Campaign:

by S. Casertano

WFPC2 is continuing to take non-proprietary parallel images under proposal 7909 during the majority of the second NIC3 campaign. The telescope has been refocused to achieve optimal focus in NIC3, therefore these WFPC2 images are somewhat out of focus. While the PSF is strongly degraded in the Planetary Camera, the quality of the images in the Wide Field Cameras is only slightly degraded compared to normal circumstances.

Of special interest may be the WFPC2 images taken under program 8013, which runs parallel with the complete NICMOS map of the Hubble Deep Field (PI Mark Dickinson, GO 7817). These WFPC2 parallel images are taken in the same filters as the original Hubble Deep Field, and together they will produce a moderately deep four-filter image of a field about 5' away from the original HDF.

Data for both the normal parallels (proposal 7909) and the HDF parallels (proposal 8013) are immediately available to the public through the HST data archive.

Please note that a small fraction of the HDF parallels have been taken with two-filter combinations (F791W+F814W and F555W+F606W), which can be used to offset the defocus of the camera. Because of the relatively small focus change, the two-filter approach proved unnecessary, and we have reverted to the normal filters after the first four visits.

The Automatic Notification Tool (ANT):

While one of our goals is to provide an efficient and stable Long Range Plan (LRP), we have always recognized that there will be times when the LRP will need to be modified to react to observatory changes, new planning requirements, and proposal changes. Since changes in a visit's plan window can affect your work schedule, we want to quickly and consistently alert you when changes occur.

For this purpose we have developed the Automatic Notification Tool. This tool detects significant plan window changes and, for any program with at least one changed visit, automatically generates and e-mails a report to the the PI or designated contact, PC, and CS.

The ANT will be run weekly starting the week of June 29, 1998. If you have any questions or comments you may direct them to your PC or CS.

RECENT PREPRINTS:

We draw your attention to these papers, based on WF/PC and WFPC2 data, that will appear in the next few months. This list includes all preprints received by the STScI Library not yet published in the journals. Please remember to include our Library in your preprint distribution list.

COLE, A.A.; GALLAGHER, J.S. III; MOULD, J.R.; CLARKE, J.T.;
TRAUGER, J.T.; WATSON, A.M.; BALLESTER, G.E.; BURROWS,
C.J.; CASERTANO, S.; CRISP, D.; GRIFFITHS, R.E.; GRILLMAIR,
C.J.; HESTER, J.J.; HOESSEL, J.G.; HOLTZMAN, J.A.; SCOWEN,
P.A.; STAPELFELDT, K.R.; WESTPHAL, J.A.  "Far-Ultraviolet
and Visible Imaging of the Nucleus of M32"  ApJ accepted

MORSE, J.A.; CECIL, G.; WILSON, A.; TSVETANOV, Z.
HST+WFPC2  "Inclined Gas Disks in the Lenticular Seyfert Galaxy NGC
5252"  ApJ accepted

POZZETTI, L.; MADAU, P.; ZAMORANI, G.; FERGUSON, H.C.;
BRUZUAL A., G.  "High Redshift Galaxies in the Hubble Deep
Field. II. Colours and Number Counts"  MNRAS accepted

BRODIE, J.P.; SCHRODER, L.L.; HUCHRA, J.P.; PHILLIPS, A.C.;
KISSLER-PATIG, M.;FORBES, D.A.  "Keck Spectroscopy of
Candidate Proto-globular Clusters in NGC 1275"  AJ accepted

DE MELLO, D.F.; SCHAERER, D.; HELDMANN, J.; LEITHERER, C.
"Searching for WR Stars in I Zw 18- The Origin of He II
Emission"  ApJ accepted

GONZALEZ, R.A.; ALLEN, R.J.; DIRSCH, B.; FERGUSON, H.C.;
CALZETTI, D.; PANAGIA, N.  "The Opacity of Nearby Galaxies
from Colors and Counts of Background Galaxies: I. The
Synthetic Field Method and Its Application to NGC 4536 &
NGC 3664"  ApJ 10-10-98

LUBIN, L.M.; POSTMAN, M.; OKE, J.B.; RATNATUNGA, K.U.;
GUNN, J.E.; HOESSEL, J.G.; SCHNEIDER, D.P.  "A Study of
Nine High-Redshift Clusters of Galaxies. III. HST
Morphology of Clusters 0023+0423 and 1604+4304"  AJ accepted

OSTLIN, G.; BERGVALL, N.; RONNBACK, J.  "Globular Clusters
in the Blue Compact Galaxy ESO 338-IG04 (Tol 1924-416), as
Tracers of the Star Formation History. Results from
HST/WFPC2 Observations"  A&A 335: 85-112, 1998

PASCARELLE, S.M.; WINDHORST, R.A.; KEEL, W.C.  "Compact
Lyman-alpha Emitting Candidates at z ~= 2.4 in Deep
Medium-Band HST WFPC2 Images"  AJ

APPENDIX: WFPC2 Contacts:

Any questions about the scheduling of your observations should be addressed to your Program Coordinator. Post-Observation questions can be addressed to your Contact Scientist. If you do not know who these persons are, you can find the information on the WWW at www.stsci.edu/public/propinfo.html.

Analysis, STSDAS or any other questions can also be addressed to help@stsci.edu.

To subscribe or unsubscribe send a message to listserv@stsci.edu with the Subject: line blank and the following in the body:

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The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.