GCN Circular 1801

R. Vanderspek, on behalf of the HETE Science Team, writes:

Generally, the HETE instruments' FOV is centered on the anti-solar
position.  However, at certain times (e.g., near full moon, when
Sco X-1 is near the anti-solar point, during astrometric calibrations),
the pointing direction of the HETE instruments may be offset from
the anti-solar point by as much as 50 degrees.

In order to facilitate pre-burst, concurrent, and immediate post-burst
observations of GRBs localized by HETE, information about where HETE 
will be pointing is now continuously updated and available on the HETE 
website at this URL:

  http://space.mit.edu/HETE/Latest_RADec.txt

The file includes estimates of the RA and dec of the center of the 
instruments' FOV for upcoming orbits and a few recent orbits.  The file 
also includes the time of instrument operations for the next 8 orbits.

This file can be retrieved with either of the following commands:

  lynx -dump -reload http://space.mit.edu/HETE/Latest_RADec.txt
  wget --cache=off -q -O - http://space.mit.edu/HETE/Latest_RADec.txt

A mapping of the science instruments' FOV onto the celestial sphere
based on the estimated current attitude of the HETE satellite can
be found at

  http://space.mit.edu/HETE/mission_status.html#hetepointing

Send questions or comments about this file to roland@space.mit.edu.