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Comment: added some info on GSC 2.4.0

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Historically, the accuracy of HST absolute astrometry has been limited primarily by uncertainties in the celestial coordinates of the guide stars as specified in the Guide Star Catalog. GSC 1.1 had nominal rms errors of ~0.5 arcsec per coordinate, with errors as large as ~1‐3 arcsec reported near the plate edges. This accuracy improved substantially in October 2005 (during Cycle 15) with the introduction of GSC 2.3.2, where rms errors per coordinate were reduced to ~0.3 arcsec over the whole sky.  An updated version of the catalog (GSC 2.4.0) was released in _____MONTH/DATE______November 2017, improving the celestial coordinates with the positions from Gaia DR1 and reducing errors to < 30mas over the entire sky. Thus, after including uncertainties in the positions of the science Instruments (SIs) in the alignment of the focal plane to the Fine Guidance Sensors (FGS), the total error in HST absolute astrometry is ~1 arcsec for observations made with GSC 1.1, ~0.3 arcsec for those made with GSC 2.3.2, and ~0.1 arcsec when using the new GSC 2.4.0.  A summary of the GSC catalogs and associated errors over the HST lifetime is provided in Table 1. 

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2016 ??

Catalog

Release Date

Mean Epoch of catalog positions

Typical errors

Worst errors

Total Error (including SI to FGS alignment)

Comment

GSC 1.0

Jun 1989



1-2”


 GSC1 summary

GSC 1.1

Aug 1992

1981.8

0.5”

~1”

~1”

First version published for the user community

Used by HST operations prior to Cycle 15

WFPC2 installed Dec 1993

GSC 2.0

Jan 2000





Science target fields only; GSC2 summary

GSC 2.2.0

Jun 2001





Public Release

ACS installed Mar 2002

GSC 2.3.2

Oct 2005

1992.5

0.3”

0.75”

0.3”

Public Release

GSC 1.1 and GSC 2.3.2 Comparison

GSC 2.3.3Oct 2009



WFC3 installed May 2009

GSC 2.4.0

Oct 2017

2015.0

0.03”


0.1”

GSC aligned to Gaia DR1    Citation?

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