Skip to main content
SearchLoginLogin or Signup

HST’s WFC3 in 2021

Presentation #216.05 in the session “Space Based Instrumentation and Catalogs”.

Published onJun 18, 2021
HST’s WFC3 in 2021

Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) is the workhorse instrument for HST, providing direct (staring) and scanning modes using filters and prisms, covering from the near-IR to the near-UV. We review the status of the instrument, including recent updates to its calibration, technical capabilities, and performance, which may be of particular interest to observers with data in hand, to successful cycle 29 proposers who need to plan their observations, and to those planning to propose in future cycles. The 12 years WFC3 has spent in the harsh radiation environment of low earth orbit has resulted in a continual decrease of the detector’s charge-transfer efficiency (CTE), and we are continually improving our understanding of how to best use and calibrate the detector. A new pixel-based CTE correction is now available, as well as new recommendations about how to mitigate the impact of imperfect CTE on observations and reductions.

Comments
0
comment
No comments here