HST Treasury Program

In December 2001, the first three Hubble Space Telescope "Treasury Programs" were approved. Two criteria for a Treasury Program are:

The data must be broadly valuable for astronomy and astrophysics in general, and;
Similar observations will become impossible a few years from now when the HST is no longer available.

Here we report on the Eta Carinae program, which satisfies the first criterion well and is a near-perfect example for the second. This is the most intensive spectroscopy ever attempted with the HST, and similar data will almost certainly be unattainable for at least 15 years after 2004 -- by which time Eta Car will have changed. Our program also includes an imaging component.

This site has primarily technical information for professional and advanced non-professional astronomers. However, material here may be of interest to others as well -- especially scientists, science writers, and amateur astronomers. Here you can find references, data, links, images and figures, updates and more.

An ONLINE ARCHIVE of Treasury Program Data is available.