The Herschel observation planning tool has been built starting from
the tool developed for the Spitzer Space Observatory called Spot,
thus Herschel-Spot or simply HSpot. The look and feel of this tool is
that of the Spitzer tool, but it has been fully adapted for Herschel.
Herschel Observation Planning Tool (HSpot) download
HSpot Users' Manual,
PDF (19Mb) or
HTML.
Provides information about
and how to use the HSpot tool itself for planning Herschel observations.
Changes in HSpot,
HTML.
Summarizes the changes
made in the most recent versions of HSpot.
HSpot and Proposal Handling Known Problems,
PDF (64kb) or
HTML.
Background and confusion noise
The Herschel observation planning tool HSpot has built in sky
background and confusion noise estimator functions.
Herschel Background Estimator. The infrared background estimator
provided in HSpot is an extended version of the tool developed for
the Spitzer Space Observatory. The background estimator provides the
total brightness at a given sky position, as well as the breakdown
into its components over the entire Herschel wavelength range.
Information about how the estimator calculates the background can be
found in the the
SSC Background Estimates and
IRSA Development of
Tools to Support the Herschel & Planck Far-IR/Submm Missions webpages.
Note, however, that for Herschel the sky background power in most
cases is far smaller than the radiation power received from its
relatively warm telescope, and observations are generally made as
differences between sky positions. For Herschel, the background
estimator is mainly used as an input to the background confusion
noise estimator (see below) which provides on-line guidance within
the HSpot session, on where to expect fundamental detection limits
for point sources that cannot be improved by increasing the
integration time.
Herschel Confusion Noise Estimator (HCNE). The HCNE provides
estimates for the confusion noise (i.e. uncertainty of flux
determination due to the sky background) for the photometric bands of
the Herschel PACS and SPIRE instruments. The confusion noise is
specific for the selected observing mode (AOR) and is derived
considering the two main astrophyiscal components in the far-
infrared: the Galactic cirrus and the cosmic infrared background.
Information about how the HCNE calculates the confusion noise is
described in the
Herschel Confusion Noise Estimator Science
Implementation Document and further information can be obtained in
the
Konkoly Observatory Confusion Noise webpages.The HCNE is
developed under the scientific coordination of Konkoly Observatory,
Budapest, with the coordination of the Herschel Science Centre and
with the participation of the NASA Herschel Science Center.
