ESO SL9 NEWS BULLETIN ===================== Issue : 4 Date : Wednesday, July 13, 1994, 12:00 UT (14:00 CEST; 08:00 Chilean time) Items : 4-A: Observations proceed at La Silla 4-B: HST observes comet SL9 4-C: Media Programme at ESO-Chile 4-D: Media Programme at ESO Headquarters, July 16 - 17, 1994 4-E: Observations in Japan 4-A. OBSERVATIONS PROCEED AT LA SILLA Last night was not very good at La Silla - clouds moved in shortly before local midnight and observations could only resume after some hours. Towards the morning, the sky was again nearly clear. Comet SL9 was again imaged with the NTT telescope, but due to some guiding problems, this CCD frame is of lower quality than those of the preceding nights. It shows the "early" fragments and, as the preceding ones, it will be used to obtain accurate positions of the fragments. At the time of the exposure, fragment A was 3.9 million km from Jupiter and 94 hours from impact (item 2-B). At the MPI/ESO 2.2-metre telescope, Reyner Peletier (Groningen, The Netherlands) obtained a number very good images of Jupiter in the K' waveband (near-IR, at 2.2 microns). We hope to make one of these available tomorrow. The observations at the 60 cm Bochum proceeded and more images were obtained by Uri Carsenty and Stefano Mottola (DLR, Berlin, Germany), successively improving the rotational coverage. The intention is to observe the entire surface, at least once before the series of impacts begin. One of their images, obtained during the night of July 11-12, 1994, with the DLR CCD camera through a narrow band filter, centered at wavelength 750 nm, will be available later today as ESO Press Photo SL9J/94-07 (also on the ESO WWW Portal). A unique photographic plate was taken with the ESO 1-metre Schmidt telescope by ESO night assistant Guido Pizarro during the night of July 11-12, 1994. The very bright image of Jupiter appears as a huge dark spot on this long exposure, and the cometary fragments, about 100 million times fainter than the planet, are also clearly visible. They are located in the outskirts of the Jupiter halo, and show up as a short string of individual nuclei in a line of dust that points directly towards the planet. Only a large photographic instrument like this is able to show the comet and Jupiter at the same time. This plate is now on its way to the photographic laboratory at the ESO Headquarters in Garching where it will be photographically enhanced. It is expected that it will be available early next week. A provisional, scanned version (that certainly cannot compete with the original and much less with the photographically enhanced copy to be made) has been installed on the ESO WWW Portal to give a first impression. 4-B. HST OBSERVES COMET SL9 The first of the planned HST observations which were listed in yesterday's Bulletin (item 3-D) have been successfully completed. The Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) was used to image comet fragment Q and its surroundings to help refine the size estimates of the various components of the comet train. The observations were executed as scheduled. The daily report of the telescope's activities states that four observations were received and displayed. They were as expected. These images were taken between 19:13 and 21:40 UT on 11th July using the Planetary Camera mode of the instrument and a filter passing light centred at 700 nm. The Principal Investigator of this program is Hal Weaver (Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, USA). HST observations are of particular interest at ESO as the Space Telescope - European Coordinating facility (ST-ECF) is based at the ESO Garching Headquarters. Copies of all the data from the telescope are stored here as an archive of optical discs. European Astronomers may access this data when it becomes publically available. For most data this period is one year from the time of the observation although there are sometimes exceptions to this rule. Accordingly only selected pictures which are released to the press may be available in the near future and regrettably most of new pictures cannot be supplied. The HST has also been taking some stunning images of Jupiter itself. These are the finest since the Voyager space craft passed the planet. One of these has just been released to the press by NASA and is also available via the ESO WWW Portal. 4-C. MEDIA PROGRAMME AT ESO-CHILE The media interest in this event is clearly building up - this is felt both at the ESO Headquarters and at ESO-Chile. In Chile, the Spanish version of the ESO SL9 Brochure is now available and has been sent to many newspapers and TV-stations, also in Peru and Argentina. The Daily Bulletins nos. 1, 2 and 3 will be available today in Spanish. Arrangements are being made to transmit the newest images from ESO La Silla to Santiago over a data-line to the Cerro Calan observatory. In this way the ESO images should become available to the media in the Chilean capital with the shortest possible delay. On Sunday 17, 1994, at 11:00 Chilean time, a major Press Conference will take place at the ESO Office in Vitacura (Santiago). ESO astronomer Patrice Bouchet and other ESO staff will describe the latest results of the observations, especially those which have taken place the night before at La Silla and during which the impact of fragment B will have happened. There will be other, smaller Press Conferences during the following days, to be announced later. Please contact the ESO Office in Santiago, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Vitacura (Tel.: 228-5006) for further details. 4-D. MEDIA PROGRAMME AT ESO HEADQUARTERS, JULY 16 - 17, 1994 Until today's deadline for registration, the ESO Information Service has issued an unprecedented 100+ invitations for participation in the Press Conference at the ESO Headquarters, that will start on Saturday, July 16, 1994, at 20:00 CEST. Many ESO staff are involved in the extensive preparations which involves a media-session in the auditorium all through the night. During this time, the international (scientific) computer networks will be continuously scanned for the newest information. The following, provisional schedule has been established: 20:00 Welcome; "A Clash Of Two Worlds" (video); comprehensive update (Q&A) 20:30 Telephone contact with South African Astronomical Observatory (Q&A) 20:45 First telephone/image contact with observers at La Silla (Q&A) 21:15 Telephone contact with Space Telescope Science Institute (Baltimore, USA) (Q&A) 21:30 Start of live TV images of Jupiter from telescope on ESO HQ roof 21:57 Impact A (observable from South Africa) 22:45 Telephone contact with South African Astronomical Observatory (Q&A) 23:30 Second telephone/image contact with observers at La Silla (Q&A) 01:00- Hourly telephone contact with observers at telescopes 04:30 Transfer of images as they become available 04:54 Impact B (observable from La Silla) 05:30- Telephone contact with observers at telescopes at end of 06:00 SL9/Jupiter observations (Q&A) 11:00 Press Conference: summary of results; images available During this event, the ESO Council Room will be equipped as international Press Centre with desks and a corner for interviews. Telephone lines and fax services will be available. 4-E. JAPANESE PLANS FOR OBSERVING THE COMET CRASH A list of planned observations in Japan has just been made available by Junichi Watanabe of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. The observations planned include near-IR imaging of Jupiter, video monitoring to detect short-lived phenomena, attempts to observe oscillations of Jupiter and photometry of the satellites to try to detect the reflected flashes caused by the impacts. Many imaging programmes are observing in the 890nm methane band where effects may be more prominant. An impressive array of telescopes will be used. 14 telescopes with apertures greater than 60cm are mentioned, the largest being the 150cm at Sagamihara. Most optical observations will be made using either CCD cameras for imaging or video cameras. Photometric observations will mainly use smaller telescopes with photon counting systems. ---------- This daily news bulletin is prepared for the media by the ESO Information Service on the occasion of the July 1994 collision between comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter. It is available in computer readable form over the ESO WWW Portal (URL: http://http.hq.eso.org/eso-homepage.html) and by fax to the media (on request only). News items contained therein may be copied and published freely, provided ESO is mentioned as the source. ESO Information Service European Southern Observatory Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2 D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen Germany Tel.: +49-89-32006276 Fax.: +49-89-3202362