Contents:

1) New Data Analysis Tool Demo Planned for Atlanta AAS
2) FUSE Cycle 5 Selections to be Announced Before Atlanta AAS Meeting
3) Happy New Year!



1) New Interactive Data Analysis Tool Demo Planned for Atlanta AAS

	Please come by the FUSE booth at the Atlanta AAS meeting (203rd AAS 
meeting) and participate in our demos of "CF_EDIT", the new, interactive, 
interface to the FUSE data reduction pipeline CalFUSE.
 
	With CalFUSE 3.0 we introduce a fundamentally new implementation of 
the FUSE pipeline. In this version relevant information for each detected 
photon is stored in a special 'Intermediate Data File'. In addition to position 
and arrival time this file also contains the photon wavelength, the aperture 
through which the photon passed and all information needed to correct for 
detector distortions, astigmatism, spacecraft motions and variations in the 
grating and mirror positions. For TTAG data each photon is also associated with 
a set quality flags which indicate whether the data has been compromised in any 
way. These flags mark photons observed during the day as well those which are 
detected during a burst, an SAA passage or too close to the limb of the earth. 
This format allows the maximum flexibility in manipulating the data and 
extracting the spectra. 

	The IDL based program `CF_EDIT' has been developed to allow the user 
to interactively screen and combine the individual exposures within an 
observation, extract the spectrum and display the results. We will bring laptop 
computers with CF_EDIT installed to show any interested FUSE users the current 
state of this tool.  CalFUSE v3.0 and the CF_EDIT tool are currently undergoing 
beta testing and will be released in the near future.


2) FUSE Cycle 5 Selections to be Announced Before Atlanta AAS Meeting

	NASA has completed the review and selection of FUSE Cycle 5 proposals.  
Informal notification will be sent by e-mail to the proposal PIs before the AAS 
meeting. The official letters from NASA with the review results should be 
mailed in early January.

	For accepted programs, phase 2 templates will be send out by January 23
and the deadline for returning verified and/or corrected phase 2 forms back to 
the FUSE project at JHU will be February 23, 2004.


3) Happy New Year!

	We at the FUSE project hope that you have had a pleasant holiday season
and wish you all a happy and productive 2004.

The Observer's Electronic Newsletter is published by the FUSE project and is aimed at the FUSE user community.

Editor: B-G Andersson, FUSE Guest Investigator Officer.

The FUSE Project is managed by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Astrophysical Sciences in Baltimore, MD, for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The FUSE Principal Investigator is Dr. Warren Moos, the FUSE Project Manager at JHU is Mr. Randy Ewing, and the NASA Project Scientist for FUSE is Dr. George Sonneborn.