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An established ESA-ESO cooperation

Learn about ST-ECF's evolution, current activities, and potential cooperative options with ESO and ESA, focusing on instrumental synergies, large science programs, and facility synergies.

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An established ESA-ESO cooperation

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  1. An established ESA-ESO cooperation

  2. What is the ST-ECF? • Established at ESO in1984 following an open call-for-proposals • Fourteen staff (7 ESA, 7 ESO) • European point-of-contact for HST users • Evolved from user support -> project support (endorsed by mid-term review in 1996) • New tasks added at end of 90’s as part of the revised ESA/NASA Hubble MoU (-> 2006) ST-ECF

  3. …additional staff supported by ESA HST contribution (outreach and calibration enhancement) and by EC (AVO) ST-ECF

  4. Current activities • HST instrument science projects in collaboration with STScI and Hubble instrument teams • JWST NIRSpec procurement support from ESA ST-division in collaboration with ESA project, NASA and European industrial contractors • Archive/VO developments in collaboration with ESO, CADC (Canada) and STScI • Science software development and user support • Public outreach - in an ESA context ST-ECF

  5. NICMOS spectra of z ~ 6 quasars Observations: at z~6, the Fe II bands are shifted to l~1.5 to 1.9 µm NICMOS has unique capability to observe spectra in this band QSOs at H~19 can easily reached with NICMOS grism G141 Technically challenging since pixel-response introduces features similar to such a broad band Characterisation of this effect and software to correct for it (NICMOSlook) has been developed at ST-ECF Example science from projects ST-ECF

  6. Results: • High Fe II / Mg II ratios detected in all spectra, no evolution from local QSOs • at z~6, age of universe <900Myrs • implies that Fe was either created in Population III stars or first generation of Population II stars • Freudling, Corbin, Korista 2003 ApJ 587, L67 ST-ECF

  7. HST GO program to use the ACS WFC grism for spectra of SN identified during the GOODS campaign Aim is to confirm the SN1a classification and provide the redshift for SN cosmology studies (WL and equation of state of dark energy) A spectacular example is provided by SN2002fw z = 1.3 An ACS grism spectrum was obtained in 15Ks and is the spectrum of the highest z SN to date (Riess et al., 2003, astro-ph/0308185) ACS grism spectra ST-ECF

  8. Current ESO-ESA cooperation • End-to-end science operations • The VLT operational paradigm - including the very successful ‘Service Observing’ mode - derives from Hubble. This was largely mediated by the ST-ECF (from 1989) and strongly endorsed by Giacconi during his time as ESO DG. • Instrument physical modelling • Concept developed for HST spectroscopy (notably echelle modes - STIS) has been used for the creation of the UVES pipeline. This is the most highly regarded of the current VLT instrument pipelines. ST-ECF

  9. Science data archive • Developed originally at the ST-ECF as the 2nd (complete) copy of the HST archive. Picked up by, and jointly developed with, ESO as the VLT operational archive. Impact on other ESA, missions, eg. ISO and subsequently XMM • Several major conceptual developments, eg. ‘on-the-fly’ calibration, data previews, image ‘associations’ are now fully integrated into both the ECF and the STScI archives. ESO are in the process of introducing on-the-fly calibration • Joint ESO/ECF development of Virtual Observatory concept and scientific drivers. Pathfinding ASTROVIRTEL project now complete. ST-ECF

  10. Major science programmes • Following the HDF experiments and the Hubble ‘2nd Decade’ study, there is an increasing trend to use a substantial fraction of observing time on major facilities for cooperative, large, public investigations such as GOODS (HST, VLT, Chandra, Newton, SIRTF etc.) • ST-ECF staff contribute technically and scientifically ST-ECF

  11. Potential cooperative options • Science-ready data products • ST-ECF familiarity with - and participation in - Hubble end-to-end science operation makes methodologies and components available to ESO and ESA • Modelling/simulation • Techniques can be used for comparative studies of alternative approaches to major scientific questions ST-ECF

  12. Instrumental synergies • There are very close parallels between ESA and ESO instrument developments. Most notably, the JWST NIRSpec instrument and ESO MOS devices (existing and planned) are complex but can share many of the necessary developments in calibration, operation strategy and data product design ST-ECF

  13. Facility synergies • Just as there are closely complementary programmes with eg. HST, XMM-Newton and VLT now, there will by scientifically essential synergies between future observatories such as JWST, Herschel and ALMA; OWL and Darwin • These synergies need to be actively rather than passively enabled ST-ECF

  14. Large, multi-observatory science programmes • ST-ECF technical contributions, eg. multi-wavelength image registration and combination for GOODS (radio->X-ray), deconfusion techniques for SIRTF using ACS and groundbased data • Design and organisation of ‘VO-compliant’ data products ST-ECF

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