On-orbit Alignment and Imaging Performance of the Advanced Camera for Surveys

George F. Hartig, John Krist, Andre' R. Martel, Holland C. Ford, Garth D. Illingworth

The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), scheduled to be installed in the Hubble Space Telescope in March 2002, will significantly extend HSTs imaging capabilities. We will describe the on-orbit optical alignment procedures and results, detailing the image quality performance achieved. Comparison will be made with the instrument specifications, ground test results and published performance expectations. The residual aberration content over the field of each channel will be described and compared with the optical model, and various other performance measures, including sharpness and encircled energy will be treated. The effects of the telescope focus oscillations due to thermal variations ("breathing") will also be discussed.

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