----- Attempting Submission 1 (Fri Sep 30 11:57:01 GMT 2011) ----- Joint Chandra and HST Monitoring of the Crab Nebula In 2010 Sep the Crab surprised the astrophysical community with a powerful 4-day-long gamma-ray flare, detected by the Agile and Fermi satellites. Chandra and HST images taken post flare, were limited by the lack of a reference image taken before the flare. While the study of future flaring activity will be covered by a companion TOO proposal, here we propose a joint Chandra HST program. The scientific purpose of this proposal is to: 1) establish an X-ray and optical baseline of the system prior to any gamma-ray flare as an aid for establishing the location of the flare and, 2) to identify and quantify the spatial and spectral variations in X-rays and/or the optical over time.
The program is part of a multiwavelength (X-ray and optical) monitoring campaign of the Crab pulsar and inner Nebula. It consists in a series of 6 ACS imaging observations in the F550M filter, to be performed quasi-simultaneously (within 10 days maximum) with Chandra/ACIS imaging observations. We ask to observe the target in January, February, March, April, August, September 2012. For each epoch, we have selected a time window (spanning 10 days) in which the target is visible. The HST visits (as well as the Chandra ones) should be scheduled within such windows. The same instrumental setup will be adopted for each visit. To fully cover the FOV of our Chandra observations (150"x150"), we will use the ACS/WFC with the WFC aperture. A box dithering pattern will be implemented to fill the inter-chip gap as well as to reject cosmic ray hits. Setting an exposure of 500 s for each position of the dithering pattern results in 2000 s exposure time per visit, which is well suited to achieve our goals and allows for an optimal use of the orbital visibility window. 12 false 0.0 0.0 false false false false SUPPORTED STAR PULSAR This object was generated by the targetselector and retrieved from the SIMBAD database. J2000 J2000 ACS/WFC Imaging No No F550M ACS/WFC Imaging No No F550M ACS/WFC Imaging No No F550M ACS/WFC Imaging No No F550M ACS/WFC Imaging No No F550M ACS/WFC Imaging No No F550M POS-TARG DITHER 3.5 Dithering is aimed at filling the inter-chip gap as well as at rejecting CR hits LINE 0.5 false false 85.28 4 85.28 ACS-WFC-DITHER-BOX 1 false /castor/deluca/cave/OP-cache/crab-monitoring-phaseII-v01.xml The scheduling data was generated by CASM 19.3. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "01" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20110509" :date "22-Sep-2011 12:27:12.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 1 :saa-model "27" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 1136896 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "01" :obset-id "01" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "01" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2704 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3083 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 1 0 /castor/deluca/cave/OP-cache/crab-monitoring-phaseII-v02.xml The scheduling data was generated by CASM 19.3. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "02" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20110509" :date "22-Sep-2011 13:10:45.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 1 :saa-model "27" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 1136896 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "02" :obset-id "02" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "02" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2704 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3083 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 1 0 /castor/deluca/cave/OP-cache/crab-monitoring-phaseII-v03.xml The scheduling data was generated by CASM 19.3. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "03" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20110509" :date "22-Sep-2011 13:10:51.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 1 :saa-model "27" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 1136896 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "03" :obset-id "03" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "03" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2704 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3083 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 1 0 /castor/deluca/cave/OP-cache/crab-monitoring-phaseII-v04.xml The scheduling data was generated by CASM 19.3. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "04" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20110509" :date "22-Sep-2011 13:11:01.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 1 :saa-model "27" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 1136896 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "04" :obset-id "04" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "04" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2704 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3083 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 1 0 /castor/deluca/cave/OP-cache/crab-monitoring-phaseII-v05.xml The scheduling data was generated by CASM 19.3. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "05" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20110509" :date "22-Sep-2011 13:11:05.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 1 :saa-model "27" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 1136896 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "05" :obset-id "05" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "05" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2704 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3083 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 1 0 /castor/deluca/cave/OP-cache/crab-monitoring-phaseII-v06.xml The scheduling data was generated by CASM 19.3. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "06" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20110509" :date "22-Sep-2011 13:11:10.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 1 :saa-model "27" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 1136896 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "06" :obset-id "06" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 12748 :visit-id "06" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2704 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 349 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3083 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 1 0