Dear ASCA users, Please find below the ASCA schedule for the period of December 5-17. [Report on the ASCA Attitude Control failure] After the maneuver to SN1993J on October 24 at 2:10 (UT), we found that\ the pointing position was offset by about 1 degree. After the discovery of the pointing position offset, we have investigated the cause of this malfunction and found that it was really happened after the maneuver to SGR 1915+105 on October 22 at 3:50 (UT) (KSC operation crew did not realized the offset at the time since no conspicuous source was expected in the field). At present, we have resolved the cause of this offset maneuver. Fortunately it is not due to the degradation of gyro, but due to the onboard attitude control system. After a long distant maneuver of about 150 degrees, about 0.3 degree error of pointing position occurred (this is normal from the current accuracy of gyro rate counter) and unfortunately at the offset position of STT-B field there were a combination of stars with pattern same as the combination of tracking stars. During the Saturday (October 25) acquisitions of satellite, we caught the current position of ASCA and fixed the ASCA ACS to the normal mode. Regular operation of ASCA was started after the first acquisition of ASCA on October 27 (Monday) after the observation of GRB920525. Due to this malfunction of the ACS, four observations were not completed. They are, date seq. No. target Pri. Cat. exp. PI 10/22 55040000 SGR1900+14 B USJ 80 ks K. Hurley 10/24 55018010 SN1993J #2 B JUS 50 ks H. Inoue 10/25 45023010 GRS1915+105 A MUJ 20 ks C. Robinson 10/25 65016000 NGC 6876 C JPN 40 ks H. Matsumoto The first three (priority-A and -B) targets are carried over to the next window in AO6. NGC 6876 (priority-C) is dropped out. All of the data collected during the offset pointings are immediately released public. You may find some serendipitous sources in these data. Fumiaki Nagase ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A S C A WEEKLY OBSERVATION PLAN ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- December 5 - 17, 1997 ver-1 (97/10/28) (ISAS contact scientist: R. Fujimoto (fujimoto@astro.isas.ac.jp) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date MNV Target Tag. Exp. Observation PI or start name Cat. (ks) Cat. Pri./TC ( PPI/Co-PI) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12/ 5 4:50 C Hale-Bopp CXB 30 MJU 2/Y J. Watanabe /C Lisse 12/ 6 3:30 Carina Dwarf Gal. 50 JPN 2/n N. Arimoto 12/ 7 16:10 NGC 4111 #1 Gal. 20 JUS 2/n Y. Terashima 12/ 8 4:50 A2667 CG 40 JPN 3/n Y. Tanaka 12/ 9 6:10 A133 CG 40 MUJ 2/n C. Sarazin /K. Kikuchi 12/10 9:20 RX J0134-42 AGN 50 ESJ 2/n D. Grupe 12/11 18:50 IRAS 11598-0112 AGN 20 JPN 3/n T. Yamada 12/12 11:10 MS 1244.2+7114 CG 40 JPN 3/n A. Furuzawa 12/13 7:50 Cl. Link Region CG 40 JPN 3/n H. Tomida 12/14 12:40 Mkn 205 AGN 40 JPN 2/n F. Makino 12/15 9:40 NGC 4111 #2 Gal. 20 JUS 2/n Y. Terashima 12/15 22:10 MCG-2-58-22 #2 AGN 40 US 2/Y K. Weaver (12/17 3:00 MNV to next target) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Note) Obs. Cat. JPN: Japan time, US: US time, JUS: Japan-US Collaboration, USJ: US-Japan Collaboration, MJU: Merged Japan-US (PPI=Japan), MUJ: Merged US-Japan (PPI=US), ESJ: ESA-Japan Program, MOT: Manager's observatory time (Calibration and maintenance)