UV--Visible observations with HST in the JWST North Ecliptic Pole Time-Domain Field
Abstract
We report the first results from a UV-Visible HST imaging survey of the JWST North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) Time-Domain Field (TDF). Using CVZ and near-CVZ opportunities we observed the first two out of nine tiles with WFC3/UVIS in F275W and with ACS/WFC in F435W and F606W. Over the course of the next 13 months, this survey is designed to provide near-contiguous 3-filter coverage of the central r ≤ 5‧ of this new community field for time-domain science with JWST. The JWST NEP TDF is located within JWST's northern Continuous Viewing Zone, will span ~14‧ in diameter (~10‧ with NIRISS coverage), is devoid of sources bright enough to saturate the NIRCam detectors, has low Galactic foreground extinction, and will be roughly circular in shape (initially sampled during Cycle 1 at 4 distinct orientations with JWST/NIRCam — the JWST “windmill”). NIRISS slitless grism spectroscopy will be taken in parallel, overlapping an alternate NIRCam orientation. This is the only region in the sky where JWST can observe a clean extragalactic deep survey field of this size at arbitrary cadence or at arbitrary orientation. This will crucially enable a wide range of new and exciting time-domain science, including high redshift transient searches and monitoring (e.g., SNe), variability studies from Active Galactic Nuclei to brown dwarf atmospheres, as well as proper motions of extreme scattered Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud Objects, and of nearby Galactic brown dwarfs, low-mass stars, and ultracool white dwarfs. Ancillary data across the electromagnetic spectrum will exist for this field when JWST science operations commence in the second half of 2019. This includes deep (mAB ~ 26 mag) wide-field (~23‧×25‧) Ugriz photometry of this field and its surroundings from LBT/LBC and Subaru/HSC, JHK from MMT/MMIRS, VLA 3 GHz and VLBA 4.5 GHz radio observations, and Chandra/ACIS X-ray images. Proposals for (sub)mm observations and spectroscopy to mAB ~ 24 mag are pending.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #231
- Pub Date:
- January 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AAS...23135414J