The Chandra plan of observations released last week will be interrupted on Saturday to incorporate observations of SN2024ggi, which was accepted as a Director's Discretionary Time Target of Opportunity on Apr 13. A scheduled observation of PSR B1259-63 impacted by the replan and will be rescheduled in a future week.

A real-time procedure was executed on Apr 14 to uplink a flight software patch that changes the default state of the momentum unloading thrusters. This will enable Chandra to observe safely at forward Sun pitch for a longer period of time. Additional real-time procedures were executed on Apr 16-17 to dump OBC-A and -B memory as a follow-up to the patch. The dump will be used to update the baseline memory images maintained on the ground.

Of note this week was the release on Apr 18 of CALDB 4.11.1, which updates ACIS CTI corrections, HRC-S QE Uniformity data sets and includes additions to the PCAD ACA-primary DARK_CURR (dark current) file. For details see: http://cxc.cfa.harvard.edu/caldb4/downloads/Release_notes/CALDB_v4.11.1.html

Chandra press and image releases were issued on Apr 18 describing 3D augmented reality Instagram experiences featuring Chandra data. The Smithsonian has created interactive Instagram experiences using 3D models of celestial objects generated from data collected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. Through augmented reality, users will be able to view and immerse themselves in nebulae, exploded stars and more through their phone cameras while listening to the data transformed into sound—or data sonifications. For details, see https://chandra.harvard.edu/press/24_releases/press_041824.html

The schedule of targets for the next week is shown below and includes observations of SN2024ggi which was accepted as a Director's Discretionary Time Target of Opportunity on Apr 13.