Hi Galina. I have phase II ready for submission. There are still four errors. In fact it is always the same error in the for visits that are almost identical. Karla Peterson has had a look at the diagnostic and it seems to be a false positive that can be ignored. I will send a copy of this phase II to Karla as well, so that she can trouble shot the problem. Cheers, Ale ----- Submission 1 (Fri May 19 20:00:31 GMT 2006) ----- Phase II Proposal 10885 (ngc1569_phaseII) successfully submitted. ----- Submission 2 (Thu Jul 13 23:57:32 GMT 2006) ----- Hi Galina. I have spoken with Dave Adler last Tuesday on the specific problems that this program encounters in order to be fully schedulable in cycle 15, and we came up with some solutions that we would like to try. At this point I am re-submitting a version of Phase II that includes the following modifications: 1. the target has been centered slightly differently; 2. the order of the 4-orbit VISITs has been rearranged and one of these visits has been splitted into two 2-orbit visits (currently VISIT 4 & 5); 3. two different ORIENT are now present in the proposal: ORIENT=205D for VISIT 1,2,4, and 5, and ORIENT=115D for VISIT 3 and 6. These two ORIENT are allowed separately in the NOV 2006 and JAN 2007 windows. I hope that these modifications will make it possible to have all the observations of program 10885 within Cycle 15. Please re-process this Phase II and let me know if we have achieved our desired result (all visits in Cycle 15 in the LRP). On the other hand, if despite our modifications one or more visits are still going to slit to the next cycle (i.e., Fall 2007), then we would like to resubmit a new version of Phase II where all the visits have the same orientation. Hope to hear back from you soon. Thanks, Ale P.S. The errors are the same of the first submission. Assigned ID: 580 ----- Submission 1 (Fri Jan 27 23:52:39 GMT 2006) ----- Phase I Proposal 580 (ngc1569) successfully submitted. The correct Institution of two co-Is is not in your official list. Deep Photometry of NGC 1569: Understanding the Closest and Strongest Starburst of the Nearby Universe Massive starbursts drive the evolution of galaxies at high redshift, but they can only be studied in detail in the nearby Universe where they are much rarer. The dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 1569 at 2.2 Mpc is the closest example of a true starburst. It has sustained exceptionally high star formation (SF) activity over the last Gyr, 2-3 orders of magnitude higher than in normal dwarf irregulars and spirals. This SF has been probed extensively by previous HST observations that have reached just below the tip of the red giant branch (RGB). But the data have not been able to constrain the more ancient SF history (SFH), so that our understanding remains very incomplete. It is an open question whether NGC 1569 just started to form stars around 1 Gyr ago, or whether significant SF was already active before that. We do not know what triggered the recent SF, how long the current intense SF activity has been going on, and whether such SF activity has been a more common occurrence in the past history of this galaxy. More importantly, most of these questions remain unanswered for other starburst galaxies in the nearby and distant universe as well. HST is the only telescope that can do the necessary crowded-field photometry to resolve these issues. We propose to use ACS/WFC to build a deep I vs. V-I color-magnitude diagram (CMD) that goes some 4 magnitudes deeper than the RGB tip. This will detect and characterize the red clump (RC) and horizontal branch (HB) features. The CMD will be interpreted by fitting synthetic CMDs constructed from evolutionary tracks to infer the SFH. The joint constraints from the presence, apparent magnitude, and width of the RC, HB and RGB features will independently constrain both the age and metallicity of the old and evolved stellar population of NGC 1569, the presence of multiple bursts if any, and their duration and metallicity spread. This will reveal the evolutionary status over cosmic time, and more generally will constrain the processes at play in the origin and evolution of galaxies. This project is only possible because of the high sensitivity of ACS, and it can be done very efficiently because of the location of NGC 1569 in the CVZ. Since NGC 1569 is so close, it may be the only nearby starburst for which these issues can be addressed in the foreseeable future.
We will use ACS/WFC to study the resolved stellar population in a selected field offset from the center of NGC 1569. Our expertise suggests that the V and I filters are best suited for this type of investigation. We will thus observe in the two broad-band filters F606W and F814W. F606W is preferred to the narrower F555W because it is a broader filter with a much higher sensitivity. We will infer the ancient star formation history of NGC 1569 from simulations tailored to reproduce the observed I vs. V-I CMD. Since F606W includes Halpha, we will also acquire narrow-band imaging in F658N to correct the wide F606W filter for nebular contamination. Since this target is at high declination (+65 degrees), NGC 1569 can be efficiently observed in CVZ. This will allow the observations to be executed in half the number of orbits that it would otherwise take. We will acquire exposures at one pointing for 13 orbits in F606W, 5 orbits in F814W, and 1 orbit in F658N. The exposure times for the broad-band filters were chosen to reach the magnitude of the HB (I = 27.7 mag) with a photometric error below 0.1 mag (S/N > 10). The exposures per visit in each filter will be executed with standard primary+secondary dithering patterns suitable to get rid of cosmic rays, remove hot/bad pixels, fill the gap between the two CCDs of the ACS/WFC, and improve the PSF sampling. We want to carefully position a very bright (V=10 mag) foreground star outside of the ACS/WFC detector in order not to heavily compromise the observations with ghosts and saturation issues. Such goal restricts somehow the ORIENT of the observations. The visit planner shows that the observations can schedule for three 2-day periods in Sep 2006, Nov 2006, and Jan 2007, with a certain range of ORIENT. Since only up to 6 SAA-free orbits per day can be accomodated, we will acquire the data at 2 different ORIENTs, 12 orbits at an angle of 205 degrees (Nov 2006) and 5 orbits at 115 degrees (Jan 2007). These ORIENTs have been chosen to ensure the maximum overlapping area between the two different epochs. Finally, parallel WFPC2 observations will be taken in F606W (14 orbits) and F814W (5 orbits) and will target a couple of regions quite far away from the center of NGC1569 where an HI stream has been detected. At least in one region, such observations will go deep enough to detect RGB stars at the distance of NGC 1569. This will allow us to search for stars in the HI stream of NGC1569, if they exist. N/A N/A N/A UNRESOLVED STELLAR POPULATIONS 12 false 0.0 false false false false false SUPPORTED GALAXY STARBURST MAGELLANIC IRREGULAR This object was generated by the targetselector and retrieved from the NED database. J2000 04 31 12.7600 +64 50 51.72 J2000 ACS/WFC Imaging No No F606W ACS/WFC Imaging No No F814W ACS/WFC Imaging No No F658N WFPC2 Imaging No F606W WFPC2 Imaging No F814W POS-TARG OTHER DITHER 4 2.994 ACS-WFC-DITHER-BOX false 69.05 false 0.187 0.265 2 85.27 POS-TARG ACS-WFC-DITHER-LINE 20.67 1 true POS-TARG DITHER 2.994 LINE false false 2 85.27 ACS-WFC-DITHER-LINE 2 false POS-TARG DITHER DITHER 2 2.994 ACS-WFC-DITHER-LINE false false 0.149 2 85.27 POS-TARG ACS-WFC-DITHER-LINE 34.25 3 true POS-TARG DITHER 0.265 LINE 0.187 false false 69.05 4 20.67 ACS-WFC-DITHER-BOX 4 false (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "01" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20060322" :date "18-Jul-2006 08:01:48.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 4 :saa-model "26" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 5548864 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "01" :obset-id "01" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :cvz T :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "01" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 355 :si-vis-utilization 22113 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 0 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 0 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 4 0 /var/tmp/OPVisit13209.xml (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "02" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20060322" :date "18-Jul-2006 08:02:10.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 4 :saa-model "26" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 5548864 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "02" :obset-id "02" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :cvz T :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "02" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 355 :si-vis-utilization 22192 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 0 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 0 :pcs-gap 0 ) false 4 0 /var/tmp/OPVisit13210.xml (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "03" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20060322" :date "18-Jul-2006 08:02:28.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 4 :saa-model "26" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 5548864 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "03" :obset-id "03" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :cvz T :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "03" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 355 :si-vis-utilization 22113 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 0 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 0 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 4 0 /var/tmp/OPVisit13211.xml (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "04" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20060322" :date "13-Jul-2006 15:23:15.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 2 :saa-model "26" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 2916544 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "04" :obset-id "04" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :cvz T :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "04" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 355 :si-vis-utilization 10781 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 0 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 0 :pcs-gap 0 ) false 2 0 (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "05" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20060322" :date "13-Jul-2006 16:04:52.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 2 :saa-model "26" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 2632320 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "05" :obset-id "05" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :cvz T :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "05" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 355 :si-vis-utilization 10630 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 0 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 0 :pcs-gap 0 ) false 2 0 (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "06" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20060322" :date "13-Jul-2006 16:05:27.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 3 :saa-model "26" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 5085376 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "06" :obset-id "06" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :cvz T :proposal-id 10885 :visit-id "06" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 355 :si-vis-utilization 16493 :al-overhead-at-end 29 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 0 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 0 :pcs-gap 0 ) false 3 0