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Session 19 - Solar & Planetary Systems.
Display session, Monday, January 13
Metropolitan Ballroom,

[19.06] Modeling the Earth's magnetic field using the HST Faint Object Spectrograph.

J. J. E. Hayes (STScI)

Over the last 6 years, the FOS team at STScI has routinely monitored the particle background rate detected on-board the FOS for calibration purposes. We have found no trend for an increasing count-rate and find the instrument stable. We do find that the background does increase significantly at extreme geo-magnetic latitudes (by at least a factor of 5), but there is no such effect with geo-magnetic longitude. We also find we can map the contours of the South Atlantic Anomaly quite well. We have also found that the model made for FOS use to be very similar to that found for the GHRS, and the STScI is currently in the process of developing a unified analytic model, suitable for both instruments. When the model is finalized, it will be made public through the STScI data archive and through the calibration pipeline software.


Program listing for Monday