Number 21, August 2002
Contents: 1) FUSE Cycle 4 Call For Proposals Released 2) FUSE GI (Proposal Related) Web-site at new Home 3) FUSE Given High Rating in NASA'S 2002 Senior Review 4) Updated List of Calibration Targets 5) Observatory Program Target List Available On-Line 6) CalFUSE v2.2.0 Is Coming 7) New FUSE Data-Analysis Tool Available 1) FUSE Cycle 4 Call For Proposals Released The NASA Research Announcement for Cycle 4 of the FUSE Guest Investigator program (NRA-02-OSS-03) was released on 31 July 2002. Proposals are due by 10 October 2002. Potential proposers are asked to submit Notices of Intent by 30 August 2002. Complete information about Cycle 4, including links to the NRA, observation planning tools, and a catalog of existing and pending observations, are available from the FUSE GI web site (http://fusegi.pha.jhu.edu). This is the first call for proposals for the FUSE extended mission (EM). One of the new features of the EM is the introduction of a new proposal category. As in Cycles 1-3 there are Standard proposals, but in Cycle 4 the category Survey and Supplementary Proposals has been added. The new category permits a new type of observing program where a class of objects may be proposed without the requirement that any particular object be observed. Full information is given in Appendix A of the NRA. As discussed in the previous FUSE Newsletter, target visibility has improved significantly in the last several months. Whereas all FUSE observations early this year were restricted to |dec| > 40 deg, there is now good target visibility at RA= 00h +/- 3h at all declinations, and further improvements are expected as new software and procedures are implemented. A new target visibility tool has been developed to help FUSE proposers see in detail when a target can be observed by FUSE and for how much time. Please see the FUSE GI web site for full details. 2) FUSE GI (Proposal Related) Web-site at new Home The web site for the FUSE GI program has been moved from Goddard Space Flight Center to Johns Hopkins University. The new URL is http://fusegi.pha.jhu.edu. For the time being, the old web site will redirect users to the new one, but we ask that you update your bookmark files at your earliest convenience. 3) FUSE Given High Rating in NASA'S 2002 Senior Review The results of the 2002 Senior Science Review (SSR) have been released by NASA and the news for FUSE is good! The extended mission phase was approved and funding was recommended to continue through FY2006 (the last two years of which will ultimately have to be reconfirmed by the next SSR in 2004). The recommended funding levels will allow the FUSE Project to maintain the current capabilities and enable a vigorous Guest Investigator Program. The FUSE ranking in the SSR was high, and the review committee had much positive to say about the project, the good "science per dollar" value of the mission, and the rapid recovery from our recent attitude control problems. 4) Updated List of Calibration Targets The FUSE calibration target list has been updated and extended. The main update is the addition of the M105 program. This program provides an expanded pool of stars selected to enable us to perform checks of the stability of the flux sensitivity on time scale shorter (couple of weeks) than has been typically done with the earlier program. Most of these targets have been selected at high declinations in order to be easily observable by FUSE with comparable numbers in the northern and southern hemispheres. The majority of the new calibration targets have been observed by FUSE. Amongst the goals of the M105 is the monitoring of flux sensitivity before and after test observations close to the RAM direction. The extended calibration target list will also provide a more complete baseline for monitoring FUSE sensitivity with time and ultimately improving FUSE flux calibration accuracy. The remainder of the calibration list has only been slightly modified. A few stars have been dropped from the previous list because they have proven to be difficult to observe with FUSE. Targets in other calibration programs will be observed as needed with special attention given to wavelength calibration. The full list of FUSE calibration targets can be found on the http://fusegi.pha.jhu.edu site, under the Observation List heading. 5) Observatory Program Target List Available On-Line The target lists for the ingested FUSE Observatory Programs have now been posted on the FUSE web site at: 6) CalFUSE v2.2.0 Is Coming We are happy to announce that the latest version of CalFUSE, dubbed v2.2.0, is installed and running on the Hopkins computers that process data for MAST. Once we are satisfied that all works as expected (probably early next week), we will flip the switch and begin processing incoming data with this version of the pipeline. FUSE data processed with CalFUSE v2.2.0 should begin to appear in the MAST in mid August. Reprocessing of the entire FUSE data set will begin in October and should be completed early next year. The new version of CalFUSE is similar to v2.1.6, released in June. The principal changes are the adoption of a time-dependent set of flux-calibration to counter the effects of spacecraft motion during an exposure. We will make a number of incremental changes to both software and calibration files over the next few months, so expect the pipeline version number (v2.2.x) to creep up accordingly. We will release a public version of CalFUSE v.2.2.x in early September. Users should see a dramatic improvement in the quality of calibrated FUSE data obtained from MAST once the new software is in place. In addition to correcting for astigmatism, walk, and other effects, the new pipeline produces a set of quick-look spectra in GIF format for each observation. MAST will make these images available for browsing in real time. We believe that these images will be a valuable tool for the FUSE user community. 7) New FUSE Data-Analysis Tool Available In our continuing effort to make FUSE data more accessible to the community, we have written a number of IDL routines to read and display FUSE data. A recent addition to our toolbox is FUSE_REGISTER, which allows the user to shift, scale, and combine multiple calibrated FUSE spectra interactively. For more information or to download the software, see the FUSE IDL Tools The Observer's Electronic Newsletter is published by the FUSE project and is aimed at the FUSE user community. Editor: B-G Andersson, FUSE Guest Investigator Officer. The FUSE Project is managed by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Astrophysical Sciences in Baltimore, MD, for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The FUSE Principal Investigator is Dr. Warren Moos, the FUSE Project Manager at JHU is Mr. J.B. Joyce, and the NASA Project Scientist for FUSE is Dr. George Sonneborn. Further information about the FUSE Guest Investigator Program can be obtained from: Dr. George Sonneborn; sonneborn@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov
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