Cycle 10 Calibration Plans

The STIS Cycle 10 calibration plan is in turn very similar to the Cycle 9 calibration program. Supported modes will continue to be monitored for items such as sensitivity changes, flat field evolution, dispersion solutions, and evolution of charge transfer efficiency of the CCD detector.

In addition to monitoring instrument health and safety and maintaining the overall calibration of STIS supported modes at the accuracies as established during Cycles 7 through 9, a few new calibration programs have been added for Cycle 10, with the following goals.

1. To obtain exposures of primary spectrophotometric standard stars in every single supported spectroscopic mode of STIS, including the echelle and first-order medium-resolution modes;
2. To characterize the effect of the presence of bright stars outside the field of view of the STIS CCD on the amount of scattered light;
3. To further improve PSF characterization for the CCD in imaging and coronographic mode as a function of source color;
4. To finalize the accurate determination of the throughput curve of the Long-Pass filter used for CCD imaging;
5. To monitor the throughput curves of the broad-band and medium-band imaging filters used with the MAMA's and the CCD;
6. To characterize STIS spectroscopic performance at the recently defined, "pseudo-apertures" located near now 900 of the CCD (see Mitigation of CTI Effects) that have been defined to ameliorate losses due to the decreasing charge transfer efficiency of the CCD with time. Spectroscopic sensitivity, PSFs, and LSFs will be measured at the pseudo-apertures using all supported long slits.

No additional calibrations will be taken for other available-but-unsupported instrument configurations. Observers wishing to use non-standard instrument configurations should assess their specific calibration needs and include time in their Phase I proposal for any additional calibrations that are required.

More detailed information on the STIS Cycle 10 calibration program, including all proposal ID numbers and titles, can be found on the STScI STIS web site.

If your program requires unique calibrations beyond those that are planned (use the Cycle 7-9 Calibration Programs as a guide) and that are of direct benefit to other STIS users, then you should apply directly for this calibration in your Phase I proposal.