0 Assigned ID: 292 ----- Attempting Submission 1 (Thu Apr 07 21:22:06 GMT 2016) ----- HST Phase I Proposal 292 (etaPM-ARapt.apt) successfully submitted. Receipt: # 292-1 ----- Attempting Submission 2 (Fri Apr 08 04:36:47 GMT 2016) ----- HST Phase I Proposal 292 (etaPM-ARapt.apt) successfully submitted. Receipt: # 292-2 ----- Attempting Submission 3 (Fri Apr 08 16:32:13 GMT 2016) ----- The HST archive contains multiple epochs of WFPC2 images of the nebula around Eta Carinae taken over a 15-year timespan, although only the earliest few years of data have been analyzed and published. The fact that all these images were taken with the same instrument, with the same pixel sampling and field distortion, makes them an invaluable resource for accurately measuring the expanding ejecta. The goal of a previously accepted AR proposal was to analyze the full set of appropriate continuum-filter HST images to place precise constraints on the avereage ejection date of the Homunculus Nebula; this analysis is now complete (Smith et al 2016) and the nebula appears to have been ejected in the second half of 1847. Here we propose to continue this project by constraining the motion of the more extended and much older "Outer Ejecta" around Eta Carinae. Older material outside the main bipolar nebula traces previous major outbursts of the star with no recorded historical observations. We propose an ambitious reduction and analysis of the complete WFPC2 imaging dataset of Eta Car. These data can reconstruct its violent mass-loss history over the past thousand years. We have already started this by analyzing two epochs of ACS F658N images, and astonishingly, these data suggested two previous eruptions in the 13th and 15th centuries assuming ballistic motion. WFPC2 images will extend the baseline by 10 yr, and critically, more than 2 epochs allow us to measure any deceleration in the ejecta. We will also analyze Doppler shifts in ground-based spectra in order to reconstruct the 3D geometry of past mass ejection. This AR proposal will fund the final year of a PhD thesis. Stellar Physics 12 Regular false false false SUPPORTED