Contents: 1) Posters to go with the FUSE Special Session at the Jan. 2006, AAS Meeting 2) Cycle 7 Proposal Update 3) CalFUSE v3.1 Is Now Available 4) Seeking FUSE Science Highlights 1) Posters to go with the FUSE Special Session at the Jan. 2006, AAS Meeting As we noted in the last newsletter, there will be a Special Session at the upcoming AAS meeting in Washington, DC (Meeting 207, January 8-12, 2006), highlighting some of the most important FUSE discoveries to date. The session is entitled "Recent Discoveries in the Far Ultraviolet, Results from FUSE" and will consist of six invited talks reviewing and updating highlights of the main areas of FUSE science. As there are only so many slots for these invited talks and each one is quite restricted in time, many interesting and important developments, will likely not be covered. However, there will also be an associated poster session to go with this Special Session. We invite and encourage all FUSE users to submit contributed papers for this poster session. The FUSE Special Session is # 22 in the pull-down menu on the abstract generation page available at: http://abstracts.aas.org/aas207 2) Cycle 7 Proposal Update NASA received 81 proposals for FUSE Cycle 7, all targeted toward the sky above absolute declinations of 50 degrees where FUSE can observe most readily with the one-reaction-wheel control mode. We are very pleased with the response, which indicates that there is strong demand for scientific observations in the available part of the sky. For comparison, 183 proposals were submitted for Cycle 6 when there was three times as much observing time to allocate. NASA will convene a peer review of these proposals in November and expects to announce selections by early 2006. 3) CalFUSE v3.1 Is Now Available The latest version of the FUSE calibration pipeline, CalFUSE v3.1.3, is now available for general use. The new pipeline is based on CalFUSE v3.0, but incorporates substantial improvements to both software and calibration files. For details, please see the CalFUSE Homepage We have already begun delivering data processed with CalFUSE v3.1 to the MAST archive, from which users can retrieve both extracted spectra and IDF files. We plan to reprocess the entire FUSE archive with CalFUSE v3.1, completing the job by October of 2006. The new pipeline produces three new observation-level files, which are also available from MAST: ALL: Eight extensions, one per detector segment, containing the summed spectra from each exposure. If target is bright enough, the spectra are aligned before being combined. ANO (all, night-only): Same format as the ALL files, but containing only data obtained during the night portion of each exposure. NVO (National Virtual Observatory): Contains one extension with a single spectrum spanning the FUSE wavelength range. For details, see the document "Introduction to CalFUSE v3.1" 4) Seeking FUSE Science Highlights As part of FUSE public outreach activities, we are looking to make a major upgrade to our Science Summaries web page. Examples of existing Science Summaries can be seen here: As these examples show, we try to pair an image or graphic or two with a simple page of text, describing various science results at a level that the general public can understand and appreciate. FUSE has been used to accomplish a tremendous range of science, and we would like the Science Summaries page to contain a much more representative sampling of FUSE science results. If you have recent FUSE results you think would be appropriate for public outreach, and can devote a small amount of time to drafting and reviewing of materials, please contact Luciana Bianchi (bianchi@pha.jhu.edu) or Bill Blair (wpb@pha.jhu.edu). We look forward to hearing from you!
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 the 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 Program Manager at JHU is Mr. Randy Ewing, and the NASA Project Scientist for FUSE is Dr. George Sonneborn.