ISR 2025-06: COS FUV Target Acquisition Monitoring: Cycle 32
April 28, 2025N. Indriolo
Beginning in HST cycle 25, all COS FUV target acquisition algorithms work by stepping the target across the aperture, measuring the flux at each dwell point, calculating a flux-weighted centroid based on those measurements, and slewing the telescope to that centroid position. This entire procedure is performed by the flight software, and no images are recorded. To confirm that the target acquisition procedures are working as expected, each year we run a series of tests that simulate this process by acquiring exposures at specified offsets in the cross-dispersion direction. Here, we present the results of these tests from cycle 32.