ACS Anneal Dates

Anneal Dates

ACS Annealing

This page contains a listing of all past and future anneal dates for the ACS/WFC detector. As part of the CCD Hot Pixel Annealing calibration program, the ACS detector is periodically annealed in an attempt to slow the growth of hot pixels that arise from radiation damage. For each anneal, the thermoelectric coolers are shutdown and the heaters are powered on to warm the detector up to about 19ºC over the span of ~12 hours. Before and after each anneal, four 1040 second darks frames and 4 bias frames are taken for monitoring purposes to determine the efficiacy of the annealing process as the detector continues to degrade from radiation damage. 

  • Upcoming Anneal Windows for Cycle 33

     
    Dec 15, 2025 - Dec 21, 2025
    Jan 12, 2026 - Jan 18, 2026
    Feb 9, 2026 - Feb 15, 2026
    Mar 9, 2026 - Mar 15, 2026
    Apr 6, 2026 - Apr 12, 2026
    May 4, 2026 - May 10, 2026
    Jun 1, 2026 - Jun 7, 2026
    Jun 29, 2026 - Jul 5, 2026
    Jul 27, 2026 - Aug 2, 2026
    Aug 24, 2026 - Aug 30, 2026
    Sep 21, 2026 - Sep 27, 2026
    Oct 19, 2026 - Oct 25, 2026

Completed Anneals

Completed Anneals 

Note, this list of completed anneals only contains anneals occuring after Servicing Mission 4 (SM4) which occurred in May of 2009.

Completed anneals by year

*The anneal originaly scheduled for June 23, 2021 was missed due to the HST safing on June 13, 2021.

**An artificial anneal boundary was created on March 28, 2025, after an HST safing that day caused the WFC detectors to warm, altering the dark current distribution pre- and post-safing. The original anneal period of March 11, 2025 was thus split into two segments: March 11, 2025 to March 28, 2025, and March 28, 2025 to April 07, 2025. 

Last Updated: 12/03/2025

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