Announcements

21 October 2015: The Hubble Catalogue of Variables is a three-year project funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), which was recently launched at the National Observatory of Athens, Greece. The goal is to produce a catalogue of variable sources chosen from the 30 million sources in the Hubble Source Catalog (HSC), validate those candidates and make them available in a catalogue. Over its 25 years of operation, Hubble has visited some regions of the sky multiple times, providing an opportunity to conduct a systematic search for variable objects among the sources in the HSC. The Hubble Catalogue of Variables (HCV) is expected to contain one of the largest collections of variable point sources and extended objects available, spanning a long time baseline up to 25 years, and reaching unprecedented magnitude depths. The HSC provides the backbone for the HCV project. It combines source lists generated from around 10 000 individual Hubble visits …

6 July 2015: Wednesday 24 June was a day that all Hubble observers both long for and fear, as it is the day when notifications go out to the successful Principal Investigators (PIs), letting them know that their programme has beaten the scientific oversubscription odds and that they will now be very busy completing the Phase II instructions needed to schedule their observations. One hundred and fifty astronomers, including 28 from Europe, met at the Space Telescope Science Institute in early June to assess the 1115 proposals submitted. This included 891 general observer proposals, 42 snapshot proposals, and 182 archival research proposals, with a total orbit request for the 891 general observer proposals of 19 301 orbits. For ESA member state PIs, Cycle 23 brings a record success: you have competitively won 29.2% of the proposals and the allocated orbits. Congratulations! Over the Hubble mission lifetime, there is an average success rate for …

6 July 2015: The ESA/Hubble Ode to Hubble competition was an opportunity for those inspired by Hubble to get creative and produce short videos in celebration of Hubble’s 25th anniversary on 24 April 2015. The competition has now closed but for those of you who work on Hubble there is still a lot to gain from it. We hope you will take the time to view some of the videos as the quality and creativity of the entries, and the passion for Hubble they display, are remarkable to see. Hopefully we can all take something from seeing what Hubble inspires outside of our research. Desiré de Palacio from Spain, in the over 25s category, created a stunning video, Bariónica, which, using photography, explores how Hubble has inspired her; combining images of the Universe with those of our own planet and the human form. In the 25 and under category Halley Davies and Martin …

6 July 2015: On 23 April Hubble's 25th year in orbit was celebrated by NASA and ESA with the release of a special anniversary image of the star cluster Westerlund 2. To promote this event to the public and share the stunning image with as many people as possible ESA/Hubble organised the printing and distribution of 70 large-scale prints to be used in celebration of Hubble. To support the unveiling the institutes received press packs which included detailed information about the Hubble mission, Edwin Hubble himself, and the science output from Hubble so far. The press packs are a valuable tool for sharing information about Hubble not only with the press but with the public and students. They are available for you to use in both Spanish and English. Also now available, and of use for talks and presentations, are two powerpoint presentations (courtesy of NASA/STScI). More than 100 institutions applied for the …

6 July 2015: Every year, the STScI organises a spring symposium on a topic of high scientific interest. This year, as we celebrated Hubble’s splendid 25 years in space, it seemed appropriate to dedicate the symposium to the amazing science done using the Hubble Space Telescope in its lifetime. As they were pondering the title for the symposium, the Science Organizing Committee (SOC) had to make a difficult choice between focusing on the great achievements of the past, or, focusing on the future, at the legacy that the next years will bring. Yes, Hubble is still going strong. As a very powerful panchromatic observatory, it is well equipped to answer a broad variety of astronomical questions, and continue observing the entire Universe, from the planets in the Solar System, to the farthest galaxies. Rejuvenated by the last Servicing Mission in 2009, all instruments are performing nominally, and — touch wood — the spacecraft …

6 July 2015: In the autumn of 2015 the Archives Group at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) will release the new European Hubble archive. More information will follow in our next newsletter, but you can expect several key new features — some of which are not available anywhere else — including: Online visualisation and inspection of 1D spectra. Online visualisation and inspection of full FITS headers. Robust searches of sources in the fields of view of observations. Detailed footprints and slits overlay on optical Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) background. Full integration with proposals and refereed publications. Batch access to data retrieval with any user-defined criteria.

23 January 2015: The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is soliciting brief white papers from the community describing initiatives that will significantly enhance what Hubble’s scientific legacy will gain from the next five years of observations. These papers, which must have a length of no more than three pages, can address any aspect of the Hubble programme. White papers should summarise the anticipated science objectives and convey a sense of their importance, urgency, and timeliness. They should explain why those objectives cannot be accomplished under the present time allocation system and should include a preliminary assessment of the feasibility of the proposed changes. The deadline for submission of white papers is 4 March 2015. Example topics that a white paper might address are: The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be launched in 2018. Are there specific programmes that Hubble should undertake now in preparation for that launch, or during the period of …

23 January 2015: NASA, ESA and The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) are pleased to announce the Cycle 23 Call for Proposals for Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations and funding for archival research and theoretical research programmes. Participation in this programme is open to all categories of organisations, both domestic and foreign, including educational institutions, profit and nonprofit organisations and other government agencies. This solicitation for proposals will be open until 10 April 2015 14:00 CEST. The Astronomer's Proposal Tools (APT), which are required for Phase I proposal submission will be made available/released for the Cycle 23 Phase I use during the second week of February 2015. Results of the selection will be announced by the end of June 2015. All programmatic and technical information, as well as specific guidelines for proposal preparation, are available electronically from the STScI Announcement Web Page: www.stsci.edu/hst/proposing/docs/cycle23announce Please take note of the "What's New for Cycle 23" …

3 December 2014: As the year draws to a close it is time to look ahead to 2015, the year that marks 25 years of Hubble. The plans for celebration have already begun with a variety of public activities on the table and it is time to let you know about what ESA/Hubble has in store. Ode to Hubble, is a public competition which will launch early next year and give everybody the chance to get creative and show how Hubble has inspired them. As long as it can be uploaded as a YouTube video, anything can be entered: a pan over a drawing, a scroll over a poem or text, a Hubblecast, a performance, a speech, a piece of music, or an animation uploaded as a video piece. Just as long as it innovative, creative and, most of all, inspired by Hubble, or one of its great discoveries or images. The two …

3 December 2014: On 20–23 April 2015 STScI will hold its spring symposium, with this year’s title being Hubble 2020: Building on 25 years of Discovery. Typically, STScI holds a major scientific symposium every May, on a broad variety of topics that are of high relevance to the scientific community. In 2015, the symposium will be dedicated to the Hubble Space Telescope, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the launch of this extraordinary mission. The Science Organising Committee (SOC), co-chaired by myself and Lou Strolger, with Mario Livio, had an interesting time discussing the scope and goals of such a symposium. Should it be a historical retrospective, showcasing the long list of amazing breakthroughs that Hubble has achieved? Or should it be a forward-looking event, pondering what other necessary science Hubble could, and should, do in the next five years? In the end, the consensus was that the symposium should look to the …

3 December 2014: November marked a big step for our ESA/Hubble outreach as the ESA/Hubble Facebook page reached 1 million likes! This means that every press release we send out, every Hubblecast we make and every announcement or new initiative from ESA/Hubble, reaches over a million people before it even reaches a news editor's desk. To celebrate this achievement and thank Hubble's fans we started a "Thank you, Hubble friend! You're one in a million!" campaign where all of you scientists, engineers, management, graphics and communications staff sent images of yourselves holding up this message for Hubble fans to see. We want to wholeheartedly thank those of you who took part. We have had some great selfies from the fans in response and to be able to see the faces on both sides is a great way to really engage people with Hubble, the people who work with it and the science it …

29 July 2014: On 1 July 2014, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope completed deep imaging of the galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (above left) and a nearby "blank" field (above right), as part of the Frontier Fields programme. The blank field image is nearly as deep as the Ultra Deep Field, and the cluster image peers even deeper into the Universe thanks to the cluster's strong gravitational lensing. Six pairs of images like these will be observed with Director's Discretionary Time (DDT) over the course of the three-year programme led by Jennifer Lotz (STScI). A number of papers have already been written based on incomplete observations of the first two image pairs (including the pair above). Deep near-infrared Hubble imaging has yielded many distant galaxy candidates out to z ~ 9 and Spitzer infrared imaging has constrained the restframe optical properties and emission line strengths of these young galaxies. …

29 July 2014: The symposium “Hubble 2020: Building on 25 years of Discovery” will mark the 25th anniversary of the launch of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This symposium will be held at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore on 20–23 April 2015. With an eye towards the future, this symposium will celebrate the extraordinary impact that the Hubble Space Telescope has had on science, culture, and public engagement with three main goals in mind: To focus on Hubble's scientific legacy through to 2020, highlighting synergies with ongoing space missions.  To delineate and inspire the scientific overlap between Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope.  To pave the way for the WFIRST/AFTA telescope and for the next generation of large optical/UV telescopes in space. Please save the date! Additional information will be posted on the symposium website.

29 July 2014: The Cycle 22 Hubble time allocation process has just concluded, with the eagerly awaited Cycle 22 notification letters appearing through Hubble users' letterboxes in the last week of June. For those who have been successful, this marks the beginning of new and exciting times, planning new observations, collecting beautiful data, publishing new results and making new discoveries. Allocation statistics The Cycle 22 Time Allocation Committee worked very hard to select a subset to present to the STScI Director for approval out of the 1135 proposals submitted. This year, the oversubscription ended up being a factor 4.25 for proposals, and a factor 5.4 for orbits. When the final allocation statistics were calculated, Principal Investigators (PIs) of ESA member states did very well in the competition, obtaining 23.3% of the successful proposals, and 14.6% of the allocated prime orbits. On top of this, a 480-orbit pure parallel programme was allocated to a …

16 May 2014: During the week of 9 June 2014, approximately 150 astronomers from all over the world — 15% of whom are European — will meet at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, US, to discuss and rank this year’s proposals for Hubble observing time. 1135 proposals were received in response to the Call for Proposals for Cycle 22, between them requesting a grand total of 19 763 Hubble orbits. This is the second highest number of proposals received since Hubble’s launch, indicating that our “old” telescope is still going very strong when it comes to satisfying astronomers’ needs! The original decision to refurbish Hubble in orbit has allowed astronomers and engineers to develop state-of-the-art instrumentation that can be installed by astronauts every few years. This has allowed Hubble to keep pace with the evolution of the astronomical field, and stay strong, relevant, and competitive. It is fascinating to examine …

16 May 2014: At ESA/Hubble we do not only write press releases and process astronomical images for circulation. We also develop award-winning visuals, from artists’ impressions, animations, and illustrations, to our video podcast: the Hubblecast. What exactly is a Hubblecast? Hubblecasts are short videos lasting less than ten minutes that present Hubble research to a public audience in a more visual way. Key to every Hubblecast is a good story, some striking visuals produced by our team and an accessible insight into the science. For this we look for research that lends itself to telling an interesting story, has potential for high quality visuals and which will captivate a public audience. We produce ten episodes of the Hubblecast per year and we choose the subject matter by evaluating papers for their Hubblecast potential whilst developing press releases for them. Professional voice artist and presenter Sara Mendes da Costa provides narration for these videos, …

16 May 2014: In March this year I had the pleasure of becoming the public information officer for ESA/Hubble, following on from my predecessor Nicky Guttridge. The role involves producing and managing the content of spacetelescope.org including pictures of the week, science and photo press releases, newsletters, and award-winning Hubblecasts, as well as liasing with journalists, the public, universities and research institutions, press offices, and you — the researchers. My academic background includes a BSc in Physics with Philosophy and an MSc in Science Communication. I have previously worked in public engagement with science at the global research charity the Wellcome Trust, and at the European Southern Observatory. My current roles include ESA/Hubble Public Information Officer, Editor of the journal Communicating Astronomy with the Public, and Project Manager for the London-based art-science organisation Invisible Dust. I have an immense respect for science in all its forms but, as is clear from my subjects …

16 May 2014: We have just wrapped up and recovered from the fourth Science with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST4) conference, held in Rome from 17-–20 March and organised by ESA in collaboration with NASA and STScI. What an amazing four days! With the beautiful backdrop of the Accademia dei Lincei, it was an immersion in Hubble science, spanning a wide variety of topics including ultraviolet aurorae in the Solar System, detailed studies of extrasolar atmospheres and pushing out the horizon of the observable universe. More than 150 astronomers from all over the world met to present and discuss their latest results, in lively sessions which often extended into the sunny gardens of Villa Farnesina. For a detailed compendium of the science presented, see the latest article in the STScI Newsletter by N. Reid et al. We are also working to create the archival website for the conference and all presentations and photos …

16 May 2014: Every few years STScI organises a comprehensive calibration workshop. This year the calibration workshop will be held on August 11-–13, at STScI. If you are interested in learning about all the tools available to best extract the science from your Hubble data, or you want to learn about what the James Webb Space Telescope will bring to your field of research, please consider attending. The registration to the workshop is open until July 7. For additional details, see: http://www.stsci.edu/institute/conference/cal14/

24 January 2014: The European version of the Hubble Space Telescope archive, now served from ESA's Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), has its roots back in the early 1980s. At the time, it was felt that European users of Hubble might be handicapped by the need to communicate with, or even physically travel to, STScI, the scientific operations centre of Hubble in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. And so in 1984, ESA and ESO cooperated to operate a Hubble information, utilities and data centre — the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST–ECF), based at the European Southern Observatory's Headquarters near Munich. Prominent among its charges was to "provide an efficient means of archiving and cataloguing Space Telescope (ST) data and for retrieving and disseminating non-proprietary ST data". The advent of the web — the ST–ECF's website was registered as number 162 (!) or so — has done away with much of the need for a separate …