1.1 About this Document

This Primer provides an introductory overview of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and contains basic information on the telescope's operations and the unique capabilities of its instruments. While the Primer is of interest to anyone who wants to learn about HST, it is intended to be a companion document to the Call for Proposals (see Section 1.2). The Call for Proposals discusses the policies and procedures for submitting a Phase I proposal for HST observing or Archival Research. Technical aspects of proposal preparation are presented in this Primer, and a thorough understanding of the material presented here is essential for the preparation of a competitive proposal. Also, this Primer explains how to calculate the appropriate number of orbits for your Phase I observing time requests.

The Primer is only available electronically in HTML and PDF formats. The HTML version is optimized for on-line browsing, and contains many links to related or more detailed information, both within the document itself and within other STScI documents. You are therefore encouraged to use the HTML version electronically. Nonetheless, some people may prefer to read a hardcopy, and with this in mind, the PDF version was optimized for printing.

In a hardcopy printout of the PDF version, any links to information on the internet will appear as underlined text. You can look up the internet address of the corresponding link in Appendix D.