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Hands-on Hubble: Step-by-Step Guides for Exploring HST Data 

These videos are designed to guide users through the extensive data, documentation, and software available for working with Hubble Space Telescope observations. The first set of tutorials, released in 2026, focuses on the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), covering everything from navigating the website and downloading relevant software to creating mosaics with DrizzlePac and generating Point Spread Function (PSF) models. These videos are appropriate for users of all experience levels and may expand in the future to cover additional topics and instruments. For questions or to request videos on specific topics, please submit a ticket to the relevant HST instrument team through the HST Help Desk.

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An Introduction to Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3

Instrument Essentials and Online Documentation

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This tutorial provides a guided tour of the resources and tools required to master working with WFC3 observations. The beginner friendly structure covers the essentials of the instrument, how to navigate the webpage, find information in the handbooks, and tips for staying up to date on the latest developments through our instrument reports and newsletters. This essential guide aims to provide you with a comprehensive overview of the resources available for WFC3 so you can spend more time focused on your science. Download the presentation slides.

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The HST Jupyter Notebooks Tutorial Repository

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The HST Notebooks repository is a collection of Jupyter Notebooks that demonstrate how to access and analyze data sets from each of Hubble's scientific instruments, including WFC3. In this tutorial, we provide step-by-step instructions for navigating the GitHub pages, cloning the repository to your computer, setting up the required software environments, and launching notebooks in your browser. These notebooks will allow you to conduct your research more efficiently, and share your analyses with colleagues in a reproducible format. Download the presentation slides.

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Using DrizzlePac to Align and Combine Exposures

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DrizzlePac is the official software package for aligning and combining HST exposures into high-quality mosaics. In this video, we'll discuss the fundamentals of drizzling, how to align WFC3 images with TweakReg, and how to combine them with AstroDrizzle. We provide a guided tour of the DrizzlePac resources including the webpage, handbook, readthedocs, and tutorial notebooks. We conclude with practical tips that can help you align challenging data sets, as well as optimize drizzle parameters for your WFC3 observations and science goals. Download the presentation slides.

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Creating PSF Models for Astrometry and Photometry

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The telescopes Point Spread Function (PSF) is a measure of how light is distributed across multiple detector pixels after passing through the optical system of mirrors, lenses, and filters. Using an accurate PSF model is important for precisely measuring the astrometry (positions) and photometry (brightness) of sources in a WFC3 observation. In this tutorial, we'll walk through how to create high-quality PSF models based on your data set and science goals, including advanced workflows for working with individual exposures and drizzled mosaics. Download the presentation slides.

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HST Help Desk


Please contact the HST Help Desk with any questions.