Dear ASCA users, In ASCA AO8, we have accepted a total 29 targets (12.96 Ms) as the priority-A targets for the first year of ASCA life from 2000, February. These include 21 targets with 7.48 Ms (58%) proposed from Japan and 8 targets with 5.48 Ms (42%) proposed from US. After the failure of Astro-E launch, US committee and ASCA team kindly offerred to reduce by about 2 Ms the observations proposed by US side (see Table attached) to incudse some additional targets from Japanese ASCA team. Based on this change of exposure time and priority of US targets, we have revised the released observation schedule as follow for the interval between February and August. We are now under consideration for the additiona observation program. Even at this phase lost Astro-E observatory, we will keep the agreed policy for AO8: (1) we keep the idea of long observation in AO-8, because it provides unique property of ASCA observations in the era of Chandra/Neuton, (2) we also hold the rule that all the data for AO-8 observations release immediately for public. Recently, we experienced twice the transfer of the ASCA attitude control system to the Safe-Hold mode, on March 22 and April 8. Both were possible but logically very rare events from the properties of the ASCA attitude control system. Hence, the attitude control system and all the instruments aboard ASCA have no damage. The loss of observation times due to the SH-mode events are not supplemented. F. Nagase ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A S C A WEEKLY OBSERVATION PLAN (AO-8 Long Observation Program) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- #8-1, February 13 - August 8 , 2000 ver-2 (00/04/21) (ISAS contact scientist: K. ASAI (asai@astro.isas.ac.jp) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date MNV Target Tag. Exp. Observation PI or start name Cat. (ks) Cat. Pri./TC ( PPI/Co-PI) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2/13 08:00 4U1608-52 Bin. 500 LO8 A/n T. Dotani 2/24 00:00 IC 342, SC 1 Gal. 300 LO8 A/n K. Makishima 3/01 12:00 Mkn 501 AGN 400 LO8 A/n T. Takahashi 3/11 00:00 Sgr A Bin. 400 LO8 A/n H. Murakami 3/22 00:00 SS 433 Bin. 560 LO8 A/n N. Kawai 4/ 4 00:00 SMC SW Bin. 500 LO8 A/n K. Imanishi 4/17 12:00 GRS 1915+105 Bin. 300 LO8 A/n K. Yamaoka 4/25 12:00 SMC survey Gal. 200 LO8 A/n J. Yokogawa 5/01 00:00 RE 1034+30 AGN 20 US 1/Y K. Leighly (AO7 carried over target) 5/01 13:00 PKS 2155-304 AGN 400 LO8 A/n T. Takahashi 5/11 12:00 NGC 4151 AGN 600 LO8 A/n H. Inoue 5/25 00:00 NGC 4395 AGN 300 LO8 A/n K. Iwasawa 6/01 12:00 Akn 564 AGN 1400 LO8 A/n T.J. Turner 7/06 00:00 IRAS 13224-3809 AGN 750 LO8 A/n K. Leighly 7/27 00:00 LMC survey Gal. 440 LO8 A/n J. Yokogawa 8/08 0:00 MNV to next target TBD TBD Cas A N2 SNR 250 MOT Cal. Asca-team TBD TBD Rho Oph Core Star 300 LO8 A/n K. Imanishi TBD TBD V773 Tau Star 300 LO8 A/n S. Yamauchi ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (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: Observatory Time (Calibration), TOO: Target of Opportunity, and LO8: AO-8 Long Observation Program. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table: Modification of Exposure time for US Priority A Targets ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Target Approved Time PI Name Changed time name (ksec) (ksec) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ARAKELIAN 564 1560 Turner 1400 AR LAC 500 Drake 400 IRAS 13224-3809 750 Leighly 750 NGC 1313 400 Petre 300 PG 0804+761 750 Nandra --> Pri-B N23 200 Hwang --> Pri-B DEM 71 200 Hwang --> Pri-B BY CAM 1120 Mukai 500 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 5480 3350 Balance 2130