Forrest Hamilton
Science Operations Specialist

Forrest's Family

I work in the OSS and PODPS Unified System (OPUS). The OSS acronym stands for the Observation Support System and PODPS is the Post Observation Data Processing System. OSS and PODPS were combined into one system late last year. My job was (and still is to some point) to help in the merger of these two systems. A good part of this involved procedure writing and computer programing. I also manage our local set of homegrown software that we used to make our day to day work easier. In addition, I help manage the software package, called IRAF (Image Reduction and Analysis Facility), that we use to calibrate and assess HST science data.

On rare occasions I get to do some real-time commanding. This is done to support what we call a mode one target acquisition, which is needed under certain circumstances. During a mode one target acquisition, HST takes a picture of an astronomical target and sends it down to us here in OPUS within seconds after it leaves HST. Once the picture is displayed on a computer screen, we find the target and calculate how far we need to nudge HST to center the target in an aperture. Then at a predetermined time, we send a command to HST to move so that the target is centered.

Another type of real-time commanding that we do is to move or tilt the mirrors in the COSTAR instrument. Remember that COSTAR is the instrument that has the little mirrors that correct HST's primary mirror's aberration for 3 of HST's 5 science instruments. OSS (now OPUS) did a lot of this type of commanding shortly after the first servicing mission to HST, but now it is rarely needed.

I pretty much knew by the time that I was in the 5th grade that I wanted to have a career in astronomy. Throughout school, I took all of the math and science courses I could. After high school, I went to Indiana University and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Astrophysics and Astronomy. Shortly after obtaining my degree, one of my professor's (Dr. Hollis Johnson) recommended me for my current job.

I have a strong background in observational astronomy, but I would have been more prepared for my job if I had more computer experience. I did not even start to play with computers until I was a sophomore in college. Certainly, you must be comfortable with working with computers in my line of work.

Certainly, the opportunity to actually command HST is one of the best things my job has to offer. Just as fun is that I am able to see many of the HST images for the first time. On several occasions, I remember seeing images that you just know will eventually show up in press.

The worst thing about my job is that the location of STScI forces me to live near a large city. I have often wished the Institute would have been built somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. Since I do live near a city, light pollution has taken away much of the night sky that I knew as a boy. I was lucky to have grown up where the stars were the feature attraction every clear moonless night.

Long before landing the job here with HST, I was an amateur astronomer (and still am) since age 6. As far as I can remember, I have always been fascinated with the night sky. One of the things that intrigued me most while growing up on a farm in north-central Indiana (near the small town of Grass Creek), was this little luminous patch of sky that was visible on spring evenings. It was no where near the Milky Way, so that was not the answer. When I was 11, my dad purchased a small 40mm refractor telescope which he let me use on occasion. With it I was able to look at this little patch of light. It turned out that the patch was a cluster of stars called the Praesepe (also known as the Beehive Cluster) in the constellation Cancer, the Crab.

By the time I was 12, I had most of the patterns of the northern hemisphere constellations memorized. I would often go out and just look at the stars with just my naked eye. Some of the more memorable events that kept me interested in astronomy were:

• Comet West (March 1976)
• several displays of northern lights
• the views of the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn through that little 40mm refractor