EUVE Science Highlights -
June 13, 2000
EUVE Science Highlights -
June 13, 2000
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Slide 6 of 6
On 2 May EUVE led off a mammoth multi-wavelength coordinated observing campaign of the magnetic DQ Her-type cataclysmic variable EX Hya for Dr. Steve Howell (Planetary Science Institute). This is an interacting binary star system (orbital period ~98 minutes) that contains optically thick gas at temperatures of 10,000-100,000 K and optically thin gas at 1 million K and higher. Dr. Howell was awarded 1 million seconds of EUVE exposure time (~44 days on target), which was carried out from 2 May - 15 June 2000. The very long observing baseline set the stage for and led to the largest coordinated or contemporaneous multi-wavelength campaign ever organized for the study of astrophysical plasma and accretion phenomena. This observing campaign consisted of parallel guest observer or approved director's discretionary time observations with EUVE, Chandra, RXTE, USA, FUSE, HST, WHT, INT, APO, UKIRT, and numerous smaller optical telescopes. Luckily, the two brief EUVE Safe-Hold Mode (SHM) events (see "EUVE Battery Failure Prompts Safe-Hold Mode Entries" below) did not interfere with critical coordinated observing times. The resulting EUVE data alone should yield a wealth of information. For example, the final summed spectrum is expected to have a signal-to-noise (S/N) level of 100 in the continuum, providing the best EUV spectrum to date of any accretion-related astrophysical plasma. In addition, the 40+ identifiable EUV spectral lines will be used to fit phase-resolved spectral models. More information on this observing campaign was distributed as a press release on space.com at the URL http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/binary_star_search_0005 02.html