0 Assigned ID: 349 ----- Attempting Submission 1 (Fri Apr 10 03:45:50 GMT 2015) ----- 0 ----- Attempting Submission 1 (Tue Jul 21 13:48:54 GMT 2015) ----- We are addressing an important, unsolved astrophysical problem: determining the radiative and mechanical power of black holes at extreme rates of mass accretion, at or above their Eddington limit. In our recent multiband imaging study of the spiral galaxy M83 with HST/WFC3, Chandra and ATCA, we discovered a stellar-mass black hole with strong radio, X-ray and optical line emission. WFC3 optical imaging resolves the source into a core and two lobes or hot spots (separated by 0".6), the result of powerful jets interacting with the surrounding interstellar medium. We now propose to use STIS to do spatially-resolved spectroscopy of this microquasar, with the following objectives: a) determine whether the optical line emission of the core is mostly from photo-ionized gas and the lobe emission from shock-ionized gas; b) use the optical line luminosities as proxies for the integrated radiative and mechanical power of the black hole; c) measure or constrain the expansion velocity of the gas in the core and in the lobes, which will help us determine the duration and integrated energy of this powerful accretion/ejection phase. The is a proposal to observe a new microquasar, MQ1, in M83, using the STIS longslit CCD (G750M and G450L). The object is an emission line source, but it is seen projected against a moderately bright but unresolved stellar continuum, about 5" NE of the M83 nucleus. The source has a compact core and two bright surrounding knots of emission, and we need to align the STIS slit along the direction of the knots. The source emits in [O III] but because of the complex background, we will acquire using a blind offset from a nearby offset star, chosen from existing WFC3 imagery. (Because of the M83 galaxy surrounding, no GSC stars are available nearby.) We have calculated accurate offset coordinates for MQ1 from the offset star. We desire a nominal aperture position angle of 77 degrees to align the slit on the structure, but provide a +/-5 degree flexibility on the alignment. Also, we allow modulo 180 degrees, so STIS ORIENT ranges of 117 - 127 and 297 - 307 degrees are allowed. To mitigate CTE, we choose aperture 52x0.2E1. ISM IN EXTERNAL GALAXIES 12 false false false false SUPPORTED STAR SUPERGIANT O NO J2000 J2000 ISM EMISSION LINE NEBULA JET KNOT LOBE SHOCK FRONT YES MQ1 is a pure emission line source, but it is projected against unresolved and variable stellar continuum. Various line emission at ~a few E-16 erg/cm2/s STIS/CCD Spectroscopic No No G750M 6581 STIS/CCD Spectroscopic No No G430L 4300 1436972708200 /Users/wblair/Documents/proposals/HST_props/Cycle_23/M83_MQ1_STIS/Phase2/OP-cache/14211-v01.xml The scheduling data was generated by CASM 23.2. CASM was run in Phase II mode. (Tic-Visit :proposal-id 14211 :visit-id "01" :proposal-version -1 :trans-version "20150609" :date "15-Jul-2015 11:05:07.0" :trans-errors '(:WARNINGS 0 :ERRORS 0 :HEALTH-AND-SAFETY 0 :FATAL-ERRORS 0 :CONTINUABLE-FATALS 0) :number-of-orbits 4 :saa-model "24" :si-bright-earth-limb-angle 20.0 :data-volume 386880 :tdrss-contact-duration 0 :coron NIL ) (Tic-Obset :proposal-id 14211 :visit-id "01" :obset-id "01" :pcs-mode "FGS" ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 14211 :visit-id "01" :orbit-number 1 :pcs-time 333 :si-vis-utilization 2894 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3229 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 14211 :visit-id "01" :orbit-number 2 :pcs-time 222 :si-vis-utilization 3007 :al-overhead-at-end 0 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3229 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 14211 :visit-id "01" :orbit-number 3 :pcs-time 222 :si-vis-utilization 3006 :al-overhead-at-end 72 :internal-dur-at-end 0 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3229 :pcs-gap 0 ) (Tic-Orbit :proposal-id 14211 :visit-id "01" :orbit-number 4 :pcs-time 222 :si-vis-utilization 3006 :al-overhead-at-end 75 :internal-dur-at-end 379 :dark-offset NIL :dark-utilization 0 :max-dark-utilization 1920 :low-sky "N" :pcs-visibility 3229 :pcs-gap 0 ) true 4 0