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Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer

The Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) is a scientific instrument for infrared astronomy, installed on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), operating from 1997 to 1999, and from 2002 to 2008. Images produced by NICMOS contain data from the near-infrared part of the light spectrum.

NICMOS was conceived and designed by the NICMOS Instrument Definition Team centered at Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, USA. NICMOS is an imager and multi-object spectrometer built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. that allows the HST to observe infrared light, with wavelengths between 0.8 and 2.4 micrometers, providing imaging and slitless spectrophotometric capabilities. NICMOS contains three near-infrared detectors in three optical channels providing high (~ 0.1 arcsecond) resolution, coronagraphic and polarimetric imaging, and slitless spectroscopy in 11-, 19-, and 52-arcsecond square fields of view. Each optical channel contains a 256×256 pixel photodiode array of mercury cadmium telluride infrared detectors bonded to a sapphire substrate, read out in four independent 128×128 quadrants.

NICMOS last worked in 2008, and has been largely replaced by the infrared channel of Wide Field Camera 3 after its installation in 2009.

Limitations
The infrared performance of the Hubble has limitations since it was not designed with infrared performance as an objective. For example, the mirror is kept at a stable and relatively high temperature (15 °C) by heaters.

"HST is a warm telescope. The IR background flux collected by cooled focal plane IR instruments like NICMOS or WFC3 is dominated, at rather short wavelengths, by telescope thermal emission rather than by zodiacal scattering. NICMOS data show that the telescope background exceeds the zodiacal background at wavelengths longer than λ ≈ 1.6μm, the exact value depending on the pointing on the sky and on the position of the Earth on its orbit."

Despite this, the combination of Hubble's mirror and NICMOS offered never-before seen levels of quality in near-infrared performance at that time. Dedicated infrared telescopes like the Infrared Space Observatory were ground-breaking in their own way, but had a smaller primary mirror, and were also out of service at the time of NICMOS installation because they ran out of coolant. NICMOS later overcame this problem by using a machine chiller like a refrigerator, which allowed it operate for years until it went offline in 2008.

History of NICMOS
NICMOS was installed on Hubble during its second servicing mission in 1997 (STS-82) along with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, replacing two earlier instruments. NICMOS in turn has been largely superseded by the Wide Field Camera 3, which has a much larger field of view (135 by 127 arcsec, or 2.3 by 2.1 arcminutes), and reaches almost as far into the infrared. When conducting infrared measurements, it is necessary to keep the infrared detectors cooled to avoid having infrared interference from the instrument's own thermal emissions. NICMOS contains a cryogenic dewar, that cooled its detectors to about 61 K, and optical filters to ~ 105 K, with a block of solid nitrogen ice. When NICMOS was installed in 1997, the dewar flask contained a 230-pound (104 kg) block of nitrogen ice. Due to a thermal short that arose on March 4, 1997, during the instrument commissioning, the dewar ran out of nitrogen coolant sooner than expected in January 1999.

During Hubble Service Mission 3B in 2002 (STS-109), a replacement cooling system comprising a cryocooler, cryogenic circulator, and external radiator was installed on the Hubble that now cools NICMOS through a cryogenic neon loop. The NICMOS Cooling System (NCS) was developed on a very accelerated schedule (14 months vs. 5–10 years for other Hubble instrument hardware). NICMOS was returned to service soon after SM 3B.

A new software upload in September 2008 necessitated a brief shutdown of the NICMOS cooling system. Several attempts to restart the cooling system were unsuccessful due to issues with the cryogenic circulator. After waiting more than six weeks for parts of the instrument to warm up, and theorized ice particles to sublimate from the neon circulating loop, the cooler once again failed to restart. An Anomaly Review Board (ARB) was then convened by NASA. The ARB concluded that ice or other solid particle migrated from the dewar to the circulator during the September 2008 restart attempt and that the circulator may be damaged, and determined an alternative set of startup parameters. A successful restart at 13:30 EST on 16 December 2008 led to four days of cooler operations followed by another shutdown. On 1 August 2009, the cooler was restarted again; NICMOS was expected to resume operations in mid-February 2010 and operated through October 22, 2009, at which point a lock-up of Hubble's data handling system caused the telescope to shut down. The circulation flow rate to NICMOS was greatly reduced during this operating period confirming blockage in the circulation loop. Continued operation at reduced flow rates would limit NICMOS science so plans for purging and refilling the circulation system with clean neon gas were developed by NASA. The circulation loop is equipped with an extra neon tank and remotely operated solenoid valves for on-orbit purge-fill operations. As of 2013, these purge-fill operations have not yet been performed.

WFC3, installed 2009, was designed to partly replace NICMOS.

On June 18, 2010, it was announced NICMOS would not be available for science during the latest proposal Cycle 18. As of 2013, a decision as to whether the purge-fill operations will be performed and whether NICMOS will be available for science in the future has not been made.

NICMOS is also the name of the device's 256×256-pixel imaging sensor built by Rockwell International Electro-Optical Center (now DRS Technologies).

Scientific results
NICMOS was noted for its performance in Near-infrared space astronomy, in particular its ability to see objects through dust. It was used for about 23 months after it was installed, its life limited by set amount of cryo-coolant, and then later it was used for several years when a new cryo-cooler was installed in 2002. NICMOS combined near infrared performance with a large mirror.

NICMOS allowed investigation of high redshift galaxies and quasars with high spatial resolution, which was especially useful when analyzed in conjunction with other instruments such as the STIS, and it also allowed deeper investigation of stellar populations. In planetary science, NICMOS was used to discover an impact basin on the south pole of the asteroid 4 Vesta. (4 Vesta was later visited by Dawn (spacecraft) in the 2010s which investigated it more closely by orbiting it.)

In 2009, an old NICMOS image was processed to show a predicted exoplanet around the star HR 8799. The system is thought to be about 130 light-years from Earth.

In 2011, around that same star, four exoplanets were rendered viewable in a NICMOS image taken in 1998, using advanced data processing. The exoplanets were originally discovered with the Keck telescopes and the Gemini North telescope between 2007 and 2010. The image allows the orbits of the exoplanets to be analyzed more closely, since they take many decades, even hundreds of Earth years, to orbit their host star.

NICMOS observed the exoplanet XO-2b at star XO-2, and a spectroscopy result was obtained for this exoplanet in 2012. This uses the spectroscopic abilities of the instrument, and in astronomy spectroscopy during a planetary transit (an exoplanet passes in front of star from the perspective of Earth) is a way to study that exoplanet's possible atmosphere.

In 2014, researchers recovered planetary discs in old NICMOS data using new image processing techniques.

Shuttle missions

 * STS-82, (year:1997) installed, NICMOS replaces GHRS
 * STS-109, (year:2002) new crycooler installed, returned to operation.


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Fallen Angel (comics)

Fallen Angel is an American fictional comic book heroine, created and owned by writer Peter David and artist David López, who appeared in her own self-titled monthly series. It was originally published by DC Comics from July 2003 until it was canceled with issue #20 in May 2005 due to low sales. A second series, published through IDW Publishing, began in December 2005 and ran for 33 issues. It was followed by two mini-series, Fallen Angel: Reborn and Fallen Angel: Return of the Son, also published by IDW Publishing.

While not completely without humor, it is a very dark book with morally ambiguous characters. It was also one of the few "mature readers" books that DC published outside of its Vertigo imprint and was created to serve as a "bridge" between the general-audience DC titles and its Vertigo titles.

The first series was illustrated in the typical pen-and-ink method of the comic book industry by penciller David López and inker Fernando Blanco. The first five-issue arc of the second series was painted by J. K. Woodward, though both Woodward and guest artists have utilized the traditional pen-and-ink method since then.

DC Comics
Launched by DC comics in 2003, the book reportedly suffered from low sales by its eleventh issue. When asked why this might be, Peter David suggested that the comics industry as a whole is intolerant of new ideas, and that a sizable segment of comic buyers prefer to wait for a monthly comic to be collected into trade paperbacks, driving down monthly sales.

In August 2004, in response to complaints that some retailers weren't stocking copies of Fallen Angel for interested fans to purchase, David announced that he would be producing a limited-edition autographed bookplate which could be attached to the Fallen Angel trade paperback, which he would send to both interested retailers and fans.

In January 2005, David confirmed that he had been told Fallen Angel would not continue past issue #20, despite a reportedly successful promotional effort. Sales on the title were reported to be around 11,000 copies, about 4000 short of what DC required for the title to be profitable.

IDW Publishing
At the 2005 WizardWorld: Philadelphia convention, DC Comics representative Bob Wayne stated that Peter David had decided to move Fallen Angel to IDW Publishing. This prompted a response from David himself, who confirmed the news, but cautioned that the final contracts were not yet signed. Several days later, David and IDW Editor in Chief Chris Ryall discussed the move in an interview, in which they revealed that while López retained his ownership in the property, he would not be the artist on the new series. Fallen Angel resumed publication as a five-issue limited series, which was expanded to a regular monthly series due to high sales.

Although López provided some of the covers, the bulk of the interior art, in the early stages of the series, was provided by J. K. Woodward. Other artists like Kristian Donaldson also did short runs.

The final issue of the second volume, which was published on January 21, 2009, saw the conclusion of that volume's Moloch storyline, with God accepting Liandra back into heaven. The series was relaunched in July 2009 as Fallen Angel: Reborn, a four-issue mini-series featuring the character Illyria from Joss Whedon's Buffyverse. A second four-issue mini-series, titled Fallen Angel: Return of the Son, was launched in January 2011.

Premise
The story focuses on Lee (also known as the Fallen Angel) who is arguably a superheroine residing in the city of Bete Noire. The city is completely riddled with corruption, and supernatural characters who emerge at night, and is managed by the Magistrate, who answers to a mysterious organization. Lee is possibly the only force for justice in the city.

The city of Bete Noire is as much a character as a setting. It has been revealed to be the Biblical city of Enoch. During the day the city has no crime at all, but at night it is a haven for crime and corruption. Known as "the city that shapes the world", some say that the events that happen in the city influence major global events. Bete Noire is often said to possess a sentience of its own; the city decides who enters and leaves. When entering and exiting Bete Noire, Lee experiences the city as simply appearing or vanishing around a deserted road. Time passes differently in Bete Noire than it does outside of it. People born and raised in the city appear to age normally, but outsiders who come to live in it either age more slowly or experience a total cessation of aging.

Bete Noire is run by an organization known as The Hierarchy. Lee has said that even God has no dominion over Bete Noire; it is run exclusively by The Hierarchy. The Hierarchy, in turn, typically exerts its will through the city's Magistrate. The Magistrate, a direct descendant of Cain, manages the city. The position of Magistrate is passed from firstborn son to firstborn son by means of a mystical ritual performed on or after the son's eighteenth birthday. The Magistrate constantly hears the voices of the city and is plagued by visions. This perception causes the Magistrate excruciating pain, and he must learn to tolerate and ignore it. All Magistrates bear the mark of Cain, which renders them effectively immortal and impervious to harm. Magistrates are even able to mentally control the actions of those trying to do them harm. However, it appears that both former Magistrates and agents of the Hierarchy are able to hurt, and possibly even kill, a Magistrate. After passing the duties of Magistrate on to his firstborn son, Dr. Juris attempted to leave the city and experienced a fatal aging effect after he crossed the city limits. During his tenure, a Magistrate is granted one "day off" per year, during which he is permitted to leave the city.

Liandra
Liandra leads a joyous life as a guardian angel—"The Boss's favorite"—until one of her charges, a girl named Holly, develops the ability to see her. They develop a close bond, and when Holly is abducted and murdered, Liandra is devastated. The murderer is acquitted on a technicality, and Liandra kills him. As a result, Liandra is stripped of her wings and cast down to Earth.

She eventually makes her way to Bete Noire, adopting the name "Lee". She makes her base of operations in a bar called Furors. People come to her seeking her help and if she believes that they have been wronged, she helps them; however, if she thinks they deserve their fate, not only might she refuse to help them, she might also help to further their destruction. By day, she works as a physical education teacher at a girls' school, until it is destroyed by Slate. She is a very enigmatic person whose actions often seem contradictory; in one issue she tortures Black Mariah, and shortly thereafter she saves her life. For some time, she maintains a sexual relationship with Bete Noire's Magistrate, Doctor Juris, who in many ways is her counterpart in the city. She eventually gives birth to his son, Jude, and secretly leaves him in the care of an orphanage. Lee is not the first to serve as "protector" of Bete Noire; she has had more than one predecessor.

Lee has several superhuman abilities, including immense physical strength, the ability to leap large distances, and to project some type of mystical energy from her body, often from her eyes. Her invulnerability is tied to her level of concentration, and she can be harmed if extremely fatigued or distracted. She has also stated that she has a superhuman sense of direction. Since being cast down, she cannot touch Earth's soil, and so floats just above the ground when barefoot. Because of the nature of time in Bete Noire, Lee, who was not born in the city, ages more slowly than Bete Noire native-borns, but has yet experienced some aging between the first and second volumes of the series because she spends half her time outside the city. When in the city, she physically appears to be the equivalent of a twenty-five-year-old human woman, but outside the city, appears to be a woman in her late 40s.

Doctor Juris
The Magistrate and "manager" of Bete Noire, Juris answers to a mysterious group called the Hierarchy. He is Lee's prime antagonist throughout the first series and, strangely enough, her lover. He, like all other Magistrates, is a descendant of Cain. In the second series, twenty years after the events of the first, he is married to an Asian woman named Xia. He tries to pass on guardianship of Bete Noire to his son Jubal at the stroke of midnight on Jubal's eighteenth birthday, but when the ritual fails, he realizes that Jubal is not his firstborn son, which leads him to discover that he has a twenty-year-old son, Jude, by Lee. Jude soon tracks him down in Bete Noire, however, and he is able to pass his legacy to his son. When Juris tries to leave Bete Noire after this, he rapidly ages and dies.

Jude
Jude is Lee and Juris' son, and older half-brother to Jubal. He first appears as an infant (with tiny emerging wings on his back) at the end of the first series, when Lee leaves him at an orphanage shortly after his birth. As an infant, his wings are torn off by Malachi, disguised as a dog. Twenty years later, Jude is a young priest. After a visit from Slate, he seeks out Bete Noire and Juris. He agrees to become the new Magistrate, believing that he can act as a force for good. As Magistrate, he struggles to do what he believes is right despite the interference of the Hierarchy and the corrupting influence of his power. After losing the role of Magistrate, he turns his back on his mother and attempts to gain his power back from her.

Malachi
An angel himself, Malachi is Liandra's mentor and lover until her exile to Earth. Many years later, Malachi appears to Lee and claims that "The Boss" is offering her a chance to regain her wings and return to angelhood. However, he later reveals to her that he has been granted a "transfer" by God, and is now working for the Hierarchy. He also represents the Hierarchy to Jude, informing him when the Hierarchy disapproves of his actions as Magistrate. Malachi secretly approaches Jubal, and offers to help him become the next Magistrate of Bete Noire. Malachi is also Black Mariah's lover.

Unlike Lee, Malachi has retained the full scope of his angelic powers, which include the ability to survive indefinitely without breathing.

Jubal
Jubal is Juris' eighteen-year-old son by Xia, half-brother to Jude. He has spent his life trying to please his father, and bears hatred towards Jude when Juris realizes that it is Jude to whom he must pass on management of Bete Noire. He appears to have an intimate relationship with his mother, Xia.

Xia
Xia is Juris's wife by the time of the second series, and mother to Jubal. An Asian woman, Xia is not her real name, but one that Juris picked for her, which means "glow of the sunrise". After Jude becomes Magistrate, Xia attempts to become close to him, and even tries to seduce him. When these efforts fail, she concentrates on manipulating Jude, with the eventual goal of leading him to his own destruction, which Xia believes will lead to Jubal becoming the next Magistrate.

Black Mariah
Black Mariah is a witch with the power to suck life out of anyone she touches. Her role in the city is to gather information worldwide for the Magistrate. Mariah lives in fear of her brother Wilde, who has stolen her death from the ether and can use it to kill her at any time; until then, Mariah is immortal. Shortly after Lee's arrival in Bete Noire, she destroys Mariah's white slavery ring and drives her out of town. Upon her return, she offers to give Lee a piece of The Shard—a fragment of Christ's crucifix. Lee drugs and tortures Mariah for information, but later helps her recover her death from Wilde. Mariah learns that Doctor Juris was responsible for the death of Shadow Boxer, Mariah's lover, and allies herself with Lee. Twenty years later, she also enters a relationship with Malachi.

Shadow Boxer
As a child in England, Shadow Boxer is granted the ability to merge with shadows by a member of the Hierarchy. This power allows him to essentially teleport between any two dark areas. He uses this power to rescue his abusive father, who was trapped in a mine, but his father later accuses him of being in league with the Devil. In his rage, Boxer's father attacked his wife, causing her to miscarry her unborn child. Boxer killed his father as retribution. As an adult in Bete Noire, Shadow Boxer acts as Doctor Juris's main enforcer. He is also Black Mariah's lover, as her touch does not harm him. In a battle with Lee, Boxer is led to believe he has caused her to miscarry. Stricken with guilt, he confesses to Dr. Juris, who kills him.

Asia Minor
Living in a mausoleum in a graveyard, Asia Minor is an Asian drug lord who for various reasons often finds himself aiding Lee. He speaks in the broken English stereotypical of Asian immigrants, though it has been established that this is a facade, in that he is capable of speaking perfect English. He was once visited by the ghost of a girl named Tiffany, a girl who had been murdered by a junkie addicted to drugs supplied by Asia, and since then has been cursed with the ability to help only others, but never himself. Asia supplies the Magistrate with drugs that suppress the constant voices and visions that accompany the position.

Slate
Slate acts as Bete Noire's Chief Examiner, and is considered the city's best detective. Slate is also the closest thing to a police officer in the city. Before coming to Bete Noire, Slate was an officer in a northwestern African city called Maristan, which he says was even more corrupt than Bete Noire, until it was destroyed by a demon and vanished from human memory.

Sachs and Violens
Peter David brought two previously published characters, Sachs and Violens, into Fallen Angel in issue #19 of the DC Comics series. Co-owned by David and artist George Pérez, the characters had previously appeared in their own limited series from Marvel Comics's Epic imprint in 1993. Although the characters were owned by the creators, David says their appearance in Fallen Angel nearly didn't happen due to the legal costs involved. Co-creator George Pérez contributed covers to these issues. Sachs and Violens remained cast members in the series after it transferred to IDW Publishing. Juanita "J.J." Sachs and Ernie "Violens" Shultz come to Bete Noire to find and destroy a child pornography ring. They decide to remain in the city, and Violens becomes the city's Chief Enforcer after the death of Shadow Boxer. Sachs is the sister of Bumper Ruggs, the manager of a local brothel.

Dolf
The owner of Furor's, a Bete Noire bar in which violence is prohibited. Dolf allows Lee to use Furors as a base of operations, and is indeed quite protective of her, christening her "The Fallen Angel". It is implied that Dolf may be Adolf Hitler; in addition to the name of his bar's similarity to Hitler's title of Führer, Dolf claims that he has been a painter, a writer, "dabbled" in politics, and made enemies. He also owns a World War II-era Walther P38 pistol. When asked if he is a collector, Dolf again responds, "I dabble". Dolf has also indicated that he considers dark skin to be an indicator of "an inferior creature, barely above an animal...certainly not human".

Guest stars
Issues 17 through 19 of the second series feature an appearance by Billy Tucci's Shi. Issue #17 was published as a flip-book, with one following Lee, and the other half telling the same story from Shi's perspective.

Illyria from Joss Whedon's Angel appeared in a four-issue crossover with Fallen Angel. According to Peter David, "the story is set early in Illyria's involvement with Angel & Co. Having been deprived of her power by Wesley, she is drawn to Bete Noire as a potential source for not only becoming what she was before, but even achieving her previous status. Remember, what we see of her in Angel is not her true appearance". The collected edition was scheduled for a January 2010 publication.

Religious themes
Fallen Angel includes many references to Christianity and other religions, some of which provide an unusual perspective on faith and worship.

Liandra herself is a former guardian angel who had been employed by God (indeed, she was God's favorite). She states that the role of Guardians is to protect humans they are assigned to by giving them orders; however, the humans merely hear this as a suggestion in their head, and have the free will to heed it or not. Guardians are typically invisible to humans, though there have been exceptions. Lee's son Jude is a Catholic priest.

The city of Bete Noire itself is actually the Biblical city of Enoch, built by Cain and named after his son.

When asked by Jude why evil exists in the world, Liandra explains that God wants to die. She states that humanity was intended to be God's crowning achievement, and was prepared to move on after its creation, but the constant prayers of people on Earth prevent him from being able to do this. For centuries, God has been sending disasters to Earth in the hope that people will stop believing in Him and let Him pass. Peter David acknowledged that this is a somewhat unusual and controversial take on God: "The fun thing is that I ran it past a reform rabbi I encountered at San Diego con and he told me he was reasonably sure he hadn't heard anyone else come up with it before. So I'm pretty confident that the 'truth' the Fallen Angel provides Jude is going to piss off a whole lot of people. Because on the one hand it will come across as pretty blasphemous, but on the other hand, it makes a frightening amount of sense."

Lee states that Hell does not exist, and that a loving God would not subject people to endless torment without the opportunity to learn from the punishment. She also implies that the actual destination of those who believe they will go to Hell is somehow even worse.

Benny, a local pickpocket who also sometimes eats his victims, is the serpent from the Garden of Eden.

Jesus Christ seems to appear to Shi, and guides her towards the town of Yellow Springs, which is revealed to be Yomi, the Japanese realm of the dead.

Censorship
In late September 2008, IDW Publishing received a letter from the Department of Corrections in an unnamed U.S. state, informing them that copies of issues #1 and 2 of Fallen Angel that were mailed to a subscriber incarcerated in their prison were confiscated. The letter explained that the issues contained "material that violates Operating Procedure 803.2, Incoming Publications, and could be detrimental to the security and good order of the institution and the rehabilitation of inmates." Peter David, in a blog entry on his website titled, "Buy Fallen Angel so that criminals don't get their hands on it!", responded to this explanation by saying, "We are SO using this as a pull quote on the next trade paperback."

Supergirl connection
Before the move to IDW, Peter David acknowledged that Fallen Angel was based on ideas he had been unable to use during his time writing Supergirl before it was cancelled, but stopped short of admitting that Lee was, in fact, Linda Lee Danvers (Supergirl). The DC run of the title is consistent with this hypothesis, which would also jibe with the expressed intent to form a "bridge" between DC's general-audience and mature-readers-imprint.

Though David remained coy as to whether the two characters were one and the same during the DC run of the title, after it moved to IDW, David revealed Lee's origin, which clearly showed that Lee was not Danvers. However, Fallen Angel #14 introduced "Lin", who was said to be Lee's "predecessor" in Bete Noire. Lin had recently escaped Limbo, an apparent metaphor for what happened to Danvers after the cancellation of Supergirl. David was more explicit as to whether Lin was Linda Danvers in his December 13, 2006 blog entry, in which he stated: "Any fans of my run on Supergirl—particularly those who are torqued because Linda Danvers was consigned to oblivion in the DCU--must, must, MUST pick up 'Fallen Angel' #14 and #15 when they come out next year."

Since David could not explicitly claim that a character owned by DC and a character that he owned were one and the same, he admitted: "Can I say this is Linda Danvers? Of course I can't. However, it's pretty freaking obvious that it is."

Furthermore, in the Fallen Angel Premier Edition hardcover, a bonus story was revealed detailing Malachi's transfer out of God's service. This story portrayed God as being a young boy wearing a baseball cap and holding a metal golf club, similar to Wally the God-Boy from Peter David's run on Supergirl.

Collected editions
Both series have been collected into trade paperbacks.

The DC series:

 * Fallen Angel (collects issues #1–6, 144 pages, July 2004, ISBN 1-4012-0225-X)
 * Down To Earth (collects issues #7–12, 144 pages, January 2007, ISBN 1-4012-1268-9)

The IDW series:

 * To Serve in Heaven (collects issues #1–5, 120 pages, September 2006, ISBN 1-933239-77-8)
 * To Serve in Hell (collects issues #6–10, 128 pages, March 2007, ISBN 1-60010-073-2)
 * Back In Noire (collects issues #11–16, 149 pages, August 2007, ISBN 1-60010-099-6)
 * Heroine Addiction (collects issues #17–21, 128 pages, February 2008, ISBN 1-60010-156-9)
 * Red Horse Riding (collects issues #22–26, 146 pages, July 2008, ISBN 1-60010-301-4)
 * Cities of Light and Dark (collects issues #27–33, 136 pages, April 2009, ISBN 1-60010-350-2)
 * Reborn (collects issues #1–4, 104 pages, January 2010, ISBN 1-60010-586-6)
 * Return of the Son (collects issues #1–4, 104 pages, July 2011, ISBN 978-1-60010-975-1)

There are two oversized hardcovers collecting the first twenty-six issues of the IDW run, as well as additional material like the original pitch.

 * Fallen Angel: The Premiere Collection (collects issues #1–13, 320 pages, May 2007, ISBN 1-60010-076-7)
 * Fallen Angel: The Premiere Collection Volume 2 (collects issues #14–26, 328 pages, July 2009, ISBN 1-60010-446-0)

There are three Omnibus versions of Fallen Angel which collect issues #1 through #20 of the DC series, #1–33 and Reborn #1–4 of the IDW series. All are published by IDW.

 * Fallen Angel Omnibus Volume 0 (collects issues #1–20 (DC), 464 pages, July 2010, ISBN 1-60010-674-9)
 * Fallen Angel Omnibus Volume 1 (collects issues #1–21 (IDW), 512 pages, March 2009, ISBN 1-60010-382-0)
 * Fallen Angel Omnibus Volume 2 (collects issues #22–33 plus Reborn #1–4 (IDW), 360 pages, January 2011, ISBN 1-60010-847-4)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Fallen Angel (comics)


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Gezahegne Abera

Gezahegne Abera (Amharic: ገዛሄኘ አበራ; born April 23, 1978) is an Ethiopian athlete and winner of the marathon race at the 2000 Summer Olympics.

Born in Etya, Arsi Province, Gezahegne's first international competition was the 1999 Los Angeles Marathon, where he finished fourth, behind three Kenyans. That earned him a place in the Ethiopian 1999 World Championships team, where he finished eleventh.

Later in the 1999 season, Gezahegne won his first international marathon, finishing first at Fukuoka marathon in Japan. He won that marathon again in 2001 and 2002. In 2000, Gezahegne finished second in the Boston Marathon.

At the Sydney Olympics, the marathon race came down to two Ethiopians, Gezahegne and Tesfaye Tola, and Kenyan Erick Wainaina. At the 37 km mark, Wainaina tried to make a break, but 2 km later Gezahegne surged to the lead and held the position to the finishing line. At 22 years old, Gezahegne was the youngest marathon champion since Juan Carlos Zabala in Los Angeles 1932.

In 2001, Gezahegne won the World Championships by a mere second ahead of Simon Biwott from Kenya to become the first person to achieve an Olympics-World Championships marathon double.

In 2003, Gezahegne won the London Marathon in 2:07:56. At the 2003 World Championships, Gezahegne had to abandon the race due to injury, but he was selected in the Ethiopian 2004 Olympic team. Again. injury kept him from the race. His wife Elfenesh Alemu was also selected to the 2004 Olympic team, finishing fourth in the women's marathon.

Gezahegne's repeated injuries ended his running career at a relatively young age. He and his wife own a hotel and property development business.

title: Gezahegne Abera


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Ukmergė

Ukmergė (previously Vilkmergė; Wiłkomierz) is a city in Vilnius County, Lithuania, located 78 km northwest of Vilnius, with a population of about 20,000.

Etymology and variant names
The city took its original name Vilkmergė from the Vilkmergėlė River, which was initially called Vilkmergė and assumed a diminutive form after the growth of the settlement. It is commonly thought that the name may be translated as "she-wolf", from the combination of Vilkas (wolf) and Merga (maiden). More likely the second root of the dual-stemmed name is the verb merg-/merk- meaning "to submerge" or "to dip". According to local legend, Vilkmergė was a girl raised by wolves, who bridged the divide between animals and humans, in the same way as Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli. The folk etymology of "Ukmergė", by contrast, is "farm girl" (Lith. ūkis = farm). The original name has been adopted by the local soccer team, "Vilkmergė Ukmergė" as well as popular HBH Vilkmergė beer.

Other historic names for the city include Wilkemerge or Wilkamergen in 1225, Vilkenberge (1333), Wilkinberg (1384, 1455), Vilkomir (1455), Wilkomir (1611),  Wilkomirz (1613),  Wilkomiria (1766), Ukmerge (1900), Aukmergė (1908); Ūkmergė (1911), Wilkomierz (1918), and Vilkmergė (1919).

Early history
Ukmergė was first mentioned in 1225, and named as a settlement in 1333. It was essentially a wooden fortress that stood on a hill, near the confluence of the Vilkmergė River and the Šventoji River. Ukmergė was attacked by the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order in 1333, 1365, 1378, 1386, and even in 1391, already after the Christianization of Lithuania in 1387. During the last attack, Ukmergė was burned to the ground and had to be completely rebuilt.

The region began to adopt Christianity, along with the rest of Lithuania, in 1386. In the following year, 1387, its first Catholic church, St. Peter and St. Paul, was built. It was one of the first Roman Catholic churches established in Lithuania. The town was granted municipal rights at some time after the Battle of Wiłkomierz in 1435, and written sources dating from 1486 referred to it as a city. King Sigismund the Old confirmed these rights. During the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the city had been the center of powiat in the Vilnius Voivodeship.

In 1655, the Swedish and Russian armies plundered the city. Because of these incessant wars, the growth of Ukmergė suffered many setbacks. Jews began to settle in the city in the late 17th century, and built a synagogue and a cemetery. In the years 1711–1712, the bubonic plague swept through the town and wreaked havoc upon its population. At various times, the 1st Lithuanian National Cavalry Brigade, the 2nd and 3rd Lithuanian Vanguard Regiments and the 1st Lithuanian Infantry Regiment were stationed in the town. In 1792, by the initiative of the city's representative in the Great Sejm, Józef Dominik Kossakowski, King Stanisław August Poniatowski renewed the town's municipal rights and gave it its current coat of arms.

18th and 19th centuries

During the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, in 1795, the town was annexed by Russia, becoming a part of the Vilna Governorate. In 1812 the Battle of Deltuva, between the Russian and French armies, occurred not far from Ukmergė; Napoleon's army raided the town during the French invasion of Russia. During the November Uprising in 1831, the city remained in the hands of rebel elements for several months. In 1843, the town became a part of the newly established Kovno Governorate. In 1863, the city participated in the January Uprising against Russia. In 1876 a match factory was established in Ukmergė. In 1877 a fire again ravaged the town. The future president of Lithuania, Antanas Smetona, was born in Užulėnis near Ukmergė, and was educated in the local school. In 1882 a printing-house was opened. In 1899 thirteen people were punished for distributing books written in the Lithuanian language, which was prohibited at that time.

20th century
In 1918, after Lithuania declared its independence, the city's name was changed from Vilkmergė to Ukmergė. In 1919 Bolshevik forces occupied the city during the Lithuanian–Soviet War, but it was soon liberated by the Lithuanian army led by Jonas Variakojis. Over five hundred Bolshevik prisoners were taken during the Battle of Ukmergė. An iron foundry was established in the same year. In 1920, the Lithuanian army stopped Polish incursions into the rest of the country, after a series of battles that were waged to establish borders between the two newly re-established countries. An electric plant, a printing house and 120 other small businesses were opened. The city had five newspapers until 1939. In 1930, a monument named Lituania Restituta was erected to commemorate the first decade of restored Lithuanian independence. A Polish high school also operated in Ukmergė during the interbellum.

In 1940, after the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, deportations of people from the town began. When the Germans attacked the Soviet Union and its occupied territories, on June 22, 1941, the retreating Soviets gave instructions to their operatives to kill some 120 prisoners; however, most of them escaped; only eight of them were tortured to death. After the German invasion, the Nazis rounded up and killed about 10,000 members of the town's Jewish population with the help of Lithuanian collaborators. During World War II, the city center suffered from extensive bomb damage.

For years after the return of the Soviets, the city's people organized and participated in resistance movements. The deportation of the city's population to Siberia continued. In 1950 the monument to Lithuania's Independence was destroyed. The city reconstructed it in 1990, even before the restoration of Lithuania's independence was declared. Around 1964, two coupled Soviet R-12 Dvina (SS-4) nuclear missile bases were built in the woods near Ukmergė under Nikita Khrushchev. Each had four surface launch pads, semi-underground hangars to store the missiles and several accessory buildings. The bases were mentioned in the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. They both are in a ruined state at present, and freely accessible to the public.

Population
According to the 2021 census, the city population was 21,258 people, of which:
 * Lithuanians – 93.45% (19,865)
 * Russians – 3.72% (791)
 * Poles – 0.63% (134)
 * Ukrainians – 0.35% (76)
 * Belarusians – 0.30% (63)
 * Others / did not specify – 1.56% (332)

Notable people

 * Bruno Abakanowicz, Polish mathematician, born in 1852, Vilkomir (Ukmergė)
 * Alexander Braudo, author and publisher, born in 1864, Vilkomir (Ukmergė)
 * Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim, Yiddish poet and educator in Israel
 * Chaim Freinkel, philanthropist, lived, worked, and established schools in Ukmergė
 * Antanas Smetona, president of Lithuania from 1919–1920 and from 1926–1940, was born nearby and educated in the local school system
 * Leib Gurwicz, Rabbi and Talmudic scholar, studied at the yeshivah school here
 * Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, Rabbi and Lithuanian parliamentarian, built yeshivas, a school and an orphanage in Ukmergė
 * Moshe Leib Lilienblum, scholar and author
 * Ben Shahn, American artist, muralist, social activist, photographer and teacher, lived in Ukmerge in the early 1900s
 * Bob Sredersas, Lithuanian-Australian art collector went to school here
 * Zigmas Zinkevičius, Lithuanian linguist, acquired his early schooling in Ukmergė.
 * Vida Vencienė, Olympic cross country skiing gold medalist.
 * Woolf Wess, also known as William Wess or William West, a Jewish anarchist, trade union organizer, and editor of the London-based Yiddish-language anarchist newspaper, Arbeyter Fraynd (Worker's Friend), born in Ukmergė in 1861 and emigrated to London, England, dying there in 1946
 * Stanisław Lech Woronowicz, Polish mathematician, born in 1941, Ukmergė

Twin towns — sister cities
Ukmergė is twinned with:

 * 🇩🇪 Bad Langensalza, Germany
 * 🇮🇹 Cologno al Serio, Italy
 * 🇺🇦 Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine
 * 🇭🇺 Kiskunmajsa, Hungary
 * 🇸🇪 Herrljunga, Sweden
 * Līvāni, Latvia
 * 🇸🇪 Mariestad, Sweden
 * 🇪🇪 Põlva, Estonia
 * 🇵🇱 Tarnowo Podgórne, Poland
 * Tsalenjikha, Georgia
 * 🇩🇪 Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis, Germany
 * 🇸🇪 Västra Götaland County, Sweden
 * 🇩🇪 Wetteraukreis, Germany
 * 🏴 Worcester, England, United Kingdom
 * 🇭🇺 Esztergom, Hungary
 * 🇭🇺 Kiskunlacháza, Hungary

title: Ukmergė


text:
Advanced Camera for Surveys

The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) is a third-generation axial instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The initial design and scientific capabilities of ACS were defined by a team based at Johns Hopkins University. ACS was assembled and tested extensively at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and the Goddard Space Flight Center and underwent a final flight-ready verification at the Kennedy Space Center before integration in the cargo bay of the Columbia orbiter. It was launched on March 1, 2002, as part of Servicing Mission 3B (STS-109) and installed in HST on March 7, replacing the Faint Object Camera (FOC), the last original instrument. ACS cost US$86 million at that time.

ACS is a highly versatile instrument that became the primary imaging instrument aboard HST. It offered several important advantages over other HST instruments: three independent, high-resolution channels covering the ultraviolet to the near-infrared regions of the spectrum, a large detector area and quantum efficiency, resulting in an increase in HST's discovery efficiency by a factor of ten, a rich complement of filters, and coronagraphic, polarimetric, and grism capabilities. The observations undertaken with ACS provided astronomers with a view of the Universe with uniquely high sensitivity, as exemplified by the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, and encompass a wide range of astronomical phenomena, from comets and planets in the Solar System to the most distant quasars known.

Channels and detectors
ACS includes three independent channels (one now disabled), each optimized for specific scientific tasks:

Wide Field Channel (WFC)
The WFC is the most utilized channel of ACS. Its detector consists of two butted 2048x4096, 15 μm/pixel charge-coupled devices (CCDs) for a total of 16 megapixels manufactured by Scientific Imaging Technologies (SITe). The WFC plate scale is 0.05 per pixel and it has an effective field-of-view of 202×202. The spectral range of the WFC detector is 350–1100 nm.

An example of a use of this channel was SWEEPS, which found 16 candidate exoplanets in the Galactic core.

High-Resolution Channel (HRC)
The HRC, which has been permanently disabled since 2007 due to an electrical fault, provided ultra-sharp views over a smaller field-of-view.

The HRC detector was a 1024×1024 SITe CCD which had a smaller field-of-view (26"×29") than the WFC but twice the spatial sampling (0.025" per pixel). This detector was also significantly more sensitive than the WFC at near-ultraviolet wavelengths (<350 nm).

The channel used two light suppression options for imaging faint objects around bright stars, improving the contrast of targets close to bright sources by tenfold. The first was a commandable coronagraphic mask that included two occulting spots, one of diameter 1.8" at the center of the field and the other of diameter 3.0" nearer to a corner. The first spot was the most popular of the two, for example, for imaging circumstellar disks around nearby bright stars or the host galaxies of luminous quasars. The second was the so-called Fastie Finger, 0.8" in width and 5" in length, located at the entrance of the HRC dewar window.

Solar Blind Channel (SBC)
The Multi Anode Microchannel Array (MAMA) of the SBC is a low-background photon-counting device optimized for the ultraviolet in the wavelength range of 115–170 nm. It consists of a photocathode, a microchannel plate, and an anode array. Its spatial sampling is 0.034"x0.030" per pixel and its field-of-view is 34.6"×30.0". The ACS SBC is in fact a flight spare from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS).

ACS problems and fixes 2006–2009
On 25 June 2006 ACS suffered an electronic failure. It was powered up successfully on its redundant (side-2) electronics. The instrument subsystems, including the CCD detectors, proved to be working after engineering tests, and ACS resumed science operations on July 4, 2006. On 23 September 2006, the ACS again failed, though by 9 October the problem had been diagnosed and resolved.

On January 27, 2007, the ACS failed due to a short circuit in its backup power supply. The instrument's Solar Blind Channel (SBC) was returned to operation on 19 February 2007 using the side-1 electronics.

The Wide Field Channel (WFC) was returned to service by STS-125 in May 2009. The High Resolution Channel (HRC), however, remains offline.

Filters and dispersers
ACS possesses a set of 38 filters and dispersers distributed among three wheels. Two of these wheels are shared by the HRC and WFC light paths while the third is dedicated to the SBC. The HRC and WFC elements consist of eleven broad-band filters, one medium-band filter, five narrow-band filters, three visible and three ultraviolet polarizers, one prism for the HRC, and one grism (580–1100 nm). Four of the filters have bandpasses in the near-ultraviolet and so can be used with the HRC only. The primary broad-band filters are equivalent to the u, g, r, i, and z filters of the ground-based Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Five linear ramp filters divided into three individual segments each provide continuous imaging capability from 380 nm to 1070 nm and so ensure adequate sampling of emission lines over a large range in redshift. Only the middle segment is accessible to the HRC. The SBC wheel is populated with one medium-band filter (Lyα), five long-pass filters, and two objective prisms.

Timeline

 * March 7, 2002, ACS installed in the Hubble Space Telescope (STS-109)
 * June 19, 2006; ACS/WFC and HRC go offline due to problem with Low Voltage Power Supply
 * July 4, 2006 ACS resumed science operations by switching to back-up electronics
 * 23 September 23, 2006, the ACS goes offline again
 * October 9, 2006 ACS problem diagnosed and resolved.
 * January 27, 2007 the ACS failed due to a short circuit in its backup power supply.
 * 2009, ACS/WFC repaired (STS-125)

title: Advanced Camera for Surveys


text:
List of rulers of Wanga

List of rulers of Wanga Kingdom in Kenya.

Though the Wanga kingdom king's list actually starts from the re-known founder Wanga, some researchers date them back to the old Egyptian kings time where they were under the leadership of Makata. They assert that through their migration, they passed through many places such as Cameroon, Ethiopia where they were under the leadership of Simbi and Nangwera. While in Uganda they were ruled by several Buganda kings such as Muteesa, Kamaanyi, Mwanga (also Muwanga), Mbwoli (also Mbwoti), Muwanga II. Later, Wamoyi settled in Ibanda in Samia (Uganda), and Muwanga III, his son, migrated to Lela in Nyanza Kenya around the 10th century. The children of Muwanga III were Khabiakala, Wamoyi, Wanga, Wekhoba, Mukoya, Mutende and Sakwa. They all dispersed to different regions to search for a better place to live.

Muwanga III's son called Sakwa migrated to Bondo along the Lake Victoria basin. The other son Mutende, migrated southwards and settled in Kuria. The other four sons: Wamoyi, Wanga, Wekhoba and Mukoya moved to Tiriki after being invited by a cousin of them called Mukolwe who had settled earlier in Maragoli.

It is related that later, Wanga secretly moved towards the West alone and arrived in a place called Imanga in South Wanga in Mumias West sub-county. Nakhisa in his research mentions a list of kings who ruled the Wanga as follows:

title: List of rulers of Wanga


text:
Yuquanying

Yuquanying is a major traffic intersection in Beijing, linking the Jingkai Expressway with the southern part of the 3rd Ring Road. It is accessible via a connection road from Caihuying on the 2nd Ring Road.

Before it was changed to an overpass complex, Yuquanying was home to the Yuquanying Roundabout. Now, it is home to the massive Yuquanying Overpass instead.

Furniture shops are plenty in the surrounding area.

Yuquanying is also the starting point of the Jingkai Expressway.

title: Yuquanying


text:
Faint Object Camera

The Faint Object Camera (FOC) was a camera installed on the Hubble Space Telescope from launch in 1990 until 2002. It was replaced by the Advanced Camera for Surveys. In December 1993, Hubble's vision was corrected on STS-61 by installing COSTAR, which corrected the problem with Hubble's mirror before it reached an instrument like FOC. Later instruments had this correction built in, which is why it was possible to later remove COSTAR itself and replace it with a new science instrument.

The camera was built by Dornier GmbH and was funded by the European Space Agency. The unit actually consists of two complete and independent camera systems designed to provide extremely high resolution, exceeding 0.05 arcseconds. It is designed to view very faint UV and optical light from 115 to 650 nanometers in wavelength. FOC has been compared to a "telephoto" lens, providing a high resolution in a small field of view. FOC could distinguish between two points 0.05 arc-seconds apart.

Rather than CCDs the FOC used photon-counting digicons as its detector.

The camera was designed to operate at low, medium, or high resolution. The angular resolution and field of view at each resolution were as follows:

title: Faint Object Camera


text:
Ferenc Szálasi

Ferenc Szálasi (6 January 1897 – 12 March 1946) was a Hungarian military officer, politician and leader of the Arrow Cross Party who headed the government of Hungary during the country's occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Szálasi served with distinction during World War I as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army. In 1925, he became a staff officer of the restored Kingdom of Hungary under Regent Miklós Horthy. Initially apolitical, Szálasi embraced right-wing ultranationalism in the early 1930s and became a passionate advocate of the irredentist Hungarism. In 1937, he founded the Hungarian National Socialist Party, having retired from the military and fully devoted himself to politics. He attracted considerable support through his virulently nationalist and antisemitic program, while his followers became increasingly radical, leading to his imprisonment in 1938. While in prison, he was proclaimed leader of the National Socialist Arrow Cross Party, which quickly became one of the most powerful political forces in the country. Szálasi was granted amnesty in 1940, but had to operate his party clandestinely after Horthy outlawed it on the outbreak of World War II.

Following the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944 and Horthy's ousting in October, Szálasi was made head of government and head of state. His pro-Nazi puppet government, known as the Government of National Unity, was dominated by members of the Arrow Cross Party. The regime imposed martial law, participated in Germany's war efforts and recommenced the Holocaust in Hungary, which had been halted by Horthy. His militias were singularly responsible for the murder of 10,000–15,000 Hungarian Jews.

Szálasi's collaborationist government, with its authority limited to the city of Budapest and its environs, only lasted 163 days. Facing the advance of Soviet and Romanian forces, Szálasi and his cabinet fled the country shortly before the Siege of Budapest began. He was captured by American troops in Austria in May 1945 and returned to Hungary to face trial. The Government of National Unity, which had relocated to Munich, was formally dissolved the next day. The People's Tribunal in Budapest found him guilty of war crimes and high treason, and sentenced him to death. He was executed by hanging on 12 March 1946.

Ancestry
Born the son of a soldier in Kassa, Abaúj-Torna County, Kingdom of Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia) of mixed Armenian (the surname of his great-grandfather was Salossian),  German, Hungarian (one grandparent), Slovak and Rusyn ancestry. His Armenian ancestors settled down in Ebesfalva, Transylvania during the reign of Prince Michael I Apafi. Szálasi's grandfather, who participated as a honvéd in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, married a German woman from Vienna, and their son, Ferenc Szálasi, Sr. (born 1866) attended a military cadet school in Kassa and later became an official in the Honvédség. Szálasi's brothers, Béla, Károly and Rezső also served in the army.

Szálasi's mother was the Greek Catholic Erzsébet Szakmár (born 1875), who had Slovak and Rusyn roots. She provided religious education to her sons. Szálasi once said "I received the power of belief and faith in God through breast milk. My mother made to drink faith through and through me". Ferenc Szálasi lived with his mother until 1944.

Military career
Szálasi followed in his father's footsteps and joined the army at a young age. He finished elementary studies in his birthplace, then attended the military academy in Kőszeg, Marosvásárhely (now Târgu Mureș in Romania) and continued studies in Kismarton. Finally, he finished his military education in the Theresian Military Academy of Wiener Neustadt, where he was promoted to Lieutenant in 1915.

He eventually became an officer and served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I. He served on the frontline for 36 months. At the end of the war, he was promoted to First Lieutenant and was involved in the 2nd regiment of k.u.k. Tyrolean Rifle Regiments, widely known as Kaiserjäger. He was stationed near Merano and Lake Garda in the Italian Front. Later the regiments were ordered to the north to Verdun at the last days of the war. For his service, he was honored with Third Class of the Order of the Iron Crown. Returning to Hungary, Szálasi performed courier service for the newly formed Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the Aster Revolution in November 1918.

Upon the dissolution and break-up of Austria-Hungary after the war, the Hungarian Democratic Republic and then the Hungarian Soviet Republic were briefly proclaimed in 1918 and 1919 respectively. The short-lived communist government of Béla Kun launched what was known as the "Red Terror" and ultimately involved Hungary in an ill-fated war with Romania. In 1920, the country went into a period of civil conflict with Hungarian anti-communists and monarchists violently purging the nation of communists, leftist intellectuals, and others they felt threatened by, especially Jews. This period was known as the "White Terror" and, in 1920, after the pullout of the last of the Romanian occupation forces, it led to the restoration of the Kingdom of Hungary (Magyar Királyság) under Regent Miklós Horthy. During that time, Szálasi was still an apolitical person, and he did not involve himself in events beyond the general interest.

In 1920–21, Szálasi finished non-commissioned officer training school in Hajmáskér; following that, he served in the 13th Infantry Regiment in Miskolc. In 1923, he enrolled to the General Staff officers' training course at the Ludovica Military Academy. For his outstanding achievements, he was promoted with priority to Captain in 1924. In 1925, Szálasi entered the General Staff of the restored Kingdom. He fulfilled his mandatory field-grade task in 1929 at the 11th Infantry Regiment in Debrecen as a company commander. According to some memoirs by former subordinates, Szálasi was a popular and beloved superior among the infantry. His fellow officers acknowledged his military skills and literacy, but some others thought Szálasi was pedantic and autonomous. According to his future Minister of Defence, Károly Beregfy, "Szálasi's name among the General Staff was a concept of excellent hunting and tactics, but also a concept with the regards of honesty, truthfulness and Puritanism." By 1933, Szálasi had attained the rank of Major and became Chief of the 1st Honvéd Mixed-Brigade's General Staff in Budapest.

First steps in politics
Around this time, when Gyula Gömbös came to power, Szálasi became fascinated with politics and often lectured on Hungary's political affairs. By this time, the hitherto apolitical Szálasi was a fanatical right-wing nationalist and a strong proponent of "Hungarism" and advocating the expansion of Hungary's territory back to the borders of Greater Hungary as it was prior to the Treaty of Trianon, which in 1920 had reduced the country's territory by 72%. In 1933, to summarize his views, he published his 46-page pamphlet with the title A magyar állam felépítésének terve ("Plan for the Building of the Hungarian State") and sent his work to several politicians. Soldiers and military officers were banned from politicizing, thus Szálasi was sentenced to twenty-day detention and expelled from the General Staff by a military court. After his release, Szálasi was ordered to the 14th Infantry Regiment in Eger, where served as staff officer then first adjutant. Szálasi gradually became disillusioned with the army and requested resignation from that in October 1934.

On 1 March 1935, Szálasi left the army in order to devote his full attention to politics, after which time he established the Party of National Will, a nationalistic group. It was eventually outlawed by the conservative government for being too radical. Unperturbed, Szálasi established the Hungarian National Socialist Party in 1937, which was also banned. However, Szálasi was able to attract considerable support to his cause from factory workers and Hungary's lower classes by pandering to their aggrieved sense of nationalism and their virulent antisemitism.

After Germany's "Union" (Anschluss) with Austria in 1938, Szálasi's followers became more radical in their political activities, and Szálasi was arrested and imprisoned by the Hungarian Police. However, even while in prison Szálasi managed to remain a powerful political figure, and was proclaimed leader of the National Socialist Arrow Cross Party (a coalition of several right-wing groups) when it was expanded in 1938. The party attracted a large number of followers, and in the 1939 elections, it gained 30 seats in the Hungarian Parliament, thus becoming one of the more powerful parties in Hungary. Freed due to a general amnesty resulting from the Second Vienna Award in 1940, Szálasi returned to politics. When World War II began, the Arrow Cross Party was officially banned by Prime Minister Pál Teleki, thus forcing Szálasi to operate in secret. During this period, Szálasi gained the support and backing of the Germans, who had previously been opposed to Szálasi because his Hungarist nationalism placed Hungarian territorial claims above those of Germany.

Way to power
Following the Nazi occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the pro-German Döme Sztójay was installed as Prime Minister of Hungary. The Arrow Cross Party was then legalized by the government, allowing Szálasi to expand the party. When Sztójay was deposed in August, Szálasi once again became an enemy of the Hungarian government and Regent Miklós Horthy ordered his arrest. By this time, Horthy realized that Hungary's position was untenable, and began putting out feelers to the Allies. The Germans were concerned that Horthy would succeed in extricating Hungary from the war. They had, however, waiting in the wings, a perfect ally in Szálasi.

When the Germans learned of the Regent's plan to come to a separate peace with the Soviets and exit the Axis alliance, they kidnapped Horthy's son, Miklós, Jr. and threatened to kill him unless Horthy abdicated in favor of Szálasi. Under duress, Horthy signed a document announcing his own abdication and naming Szálasi prime minister–effectively giving "legal sanction" to an Arrow Cross coup. In his memoirs, Horthy contended the appointment of Szálasi was invalid, saying, "A signature wrung from a man at machine-gun point can have little legality." The Germans then pressured Parliament to install Szálasi as Head of State as well.

National leader
Szálasi's Government of National Unity turned the Kingdom of Hungary into a puppet state of Nazi Germany formed on 16 October 1944 after Regent of Hungary Miklós Horthy was removed from power during Operation Panzerfaust (Unternehmen Eisenfaust).

The Hungarian parliament approved the formation of a Council of Regency (Kormányzótanács) of three. On 4 November, Szálasi was sworn as Leader of the Nation (nemzetvezető). He formed a government of sixteen ministers, half of which were members of the Arrow Cross Party. While the Horthy regency had come to an end, the Hungarian monarchy was not abolished by the Szálasi regime, as government newspapers kept referring to the country as the Kingdom of Hungary (Magyar Királyság, also abbreviated as m.kir.), although Magyarország (Hungary) was frequently used as an alternative.

Szálasi and his "Quisling government" had little other intention or ability but to execute the party's ideology and to maintain control in Nazi-occupied portions of Hungary as the Soviet Union invaded. He did this in order to reduce the threat to Germany. Szálasi's aim was to create a one-party state based on Hungarism.

Under his rule as a close ally of Germany, the Germans, with the assistance of the Szálasi government, recommenced the deportation of the Jews, which had been suspended by Horthy. He organised the so-called International Ghetto. During that time some diplomats like Raoul Wallenberg gave protective passports to some Jews, which protected them from deportation. Germans argued they weren't valid according to international law, but Szálasi's government accepted them nevertheless. His government promoted martial law and courts-martial, and executed those who were considered dangerous for the state and the continuation of the war. During Szálasi's rule, Hungarian tangible assets (cattle, machinery, wagons, industrial raw material etc.) were sent to Germany. He conscripted young and old into the remaining Hungarian Army and sent them into hopeless battles against the Red Army.

Szálasi's rule only lasted 163 days, partly because by the time he took power, the Red Army was already deep inside Hungary. For all intents and purposes, his authority was limited to a narrowing band in the centre of the country, including Budapest. On 19 November 1944, Szálasi was in the Hungarian capital when Soviet and Romanian forces began encircling it. By the time the city was encircled and the 102-day Siege of Budapest began, he was gone. The "Leader of the Nation" (Nemzetvezető) fled to Szombathely on 9 December. By March 1945, Szálasi was in Vienna just prior to the Vienna Offensive. Later, he fled to Munich.

Trial and execution
The Arrow Cross Party's cabinet, which had fled Hungary, was dissolved on 7 May 1945, a day before Germany's surrender. Szálasi was captured by American troops in Mattsee on 6 May and returned to Hungary on 3 October. He was tried by the People's Tribunal in Budapest in open sessions begun in February 1946, and sentenced to death for war crimes and high treason.

Szálasi was hanged on 12 March 1946 in Budapest, along with two of his former ministers, Gábor Vajna and Károly Beregfy, and the party ideologist József Gera. The hanging was conducted in the Austrian pole method. A large post had a rope attached to a hook at the top. Szálasi was marched up steps, placed with his back to the post, his legs and arms were tied, the noose placed around his neck, the rope tightened, and the steps were removed. With the post only leaving a couple feet between Szálasi and the ground it is likely that he died slowly due to strangulation rather than being instantaneously rendered unconscious and dying shortly after as would happen when utilizing the standard drop. This would also explain why his arms and legs were bound as to prevent struggle during the process. Before being executed, Szálasi received the last sacraments by a Catholic priest.

Thirty-two photos of the hanging were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Other photographs of the execution are on display in the Holocaust Room of the Budapest Jewish Museum.

On 13 March 1946, the day after Szálasi's death, the National Council of People's Tribunals discussed the convicted politicians' plea for mercy and recommended its refusal to Justice Minister István Ries, when Szálasi and his ministers were already executed. Ries forwarded the decision to President Zoltán Tildy, who subsequently approved the death sentence and execution on 15 March 1946.

Szálasi was buried in Rákoskeresztúr New Public Cemetery in the Budapest Capital District, Budapest, Hungary, plot 298. In 2008, historian Tamás Kovács claimed the Political Department of the Hungarian State Police (PRO; predecessor of the feared secret police State Protection Authority) falsified his name and birth certificate, and buried him as "Ferenc Lukács" in section 298 of the New Public Cemetery. Other historians, however, rejected this claim, since no written source could be found.

Sources and further reading

 * Cohen, Asher. “Continuity in the Change: Hungary, 19 March 1944.” Jewish Social Studies 46, no. 2 (1984): 131–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4467252.
 * Cohen, Asher. "Some Socio-Political Aspects of the Arrow Cross Party in Hungary." East European Quarterly 21.3 (1987): 369+
 * Deak, Istvan. "Collaborationism in Europe, 1940–1945: The Case of Hungary." Austrian History Yearbook 15 (1979): 157–164.
 * Deák, István. "A fatal compromise? The debate over collaboration and resistance in Hungary." East European Politics and Societies 9.2 (1995): 209–233.
 * Deák, István. “Hungary”  in Hans Rogger and Egon Weber, eds., The European Right: A Historical Profile (1963) pp. 364–407.
 * Herczl, Moshe Y. Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry (1993) pp 79–170. online
 * Lackó, M. Arrow-Cross Men: National Socialists 1935–1944 (Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó 1969).
 * Fiala-Marschalkó: Vádló bitófák. London: Süli, 1958
 * Rozsnyói, Á. “October Fifteenth, 1944: (History of Szálasi’s Putsch).” Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 8, no. 1/2 (1961): 57–105. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42554680.

title: Ferenc Szálasi


text:
FOC

FOC may refer to:

Places

 * Falls of Cruachan railway station, in Scotland
 * Fuzhou Changle International Airport, in Fujian, China

Gaming

 * Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, a video game
 * Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption, an expansion for the game Star Wars: Empire at War

Music

 * FOC (album), by Australian rock group Far Out Corporation
 * Far Out Corporation, an Australian band
 * Flag of Convenience (band), an English rock band

Other arts, entertainment, and media

 * Flight of the Conchords, a New Zealand comedy duo

Communications and technology

 * Faint Object Camera, on the Hubble Space Telescope
 * Festival of Code, an annual hackathon
 * Fiber-optic cable
 * Field-oriented control

Occupations or roles

 * Father of the Chapel, a trade union official
 * Friend of the court

Organizations

 * Federal Office of Culture, in Switzerland
 * Finnish Organization of Canada, a cultural organisation
 * First Class CW Operators' Club, an Amateur Radio Morse code organisation
 * Workers Front of Catalonia (Catalan: Front Obrer de Catalunya)

Other uses

 * Foc (Barcelona Metro), a railway station in Barcelona, Spain
 * First order condition
 * Final Order Cutoff, allowance to increase or/and decrease quantity numbers in orders until print run day
 * Flag of convenience (business)
 * Flag of convenience
 * Focus (linguistics)
 * Forward of center (or front of center), a measure of the weight bias of an arrow
 * Fractional-order control
 * Free of charge
 * Freedom of choice
 * Full operational capability
 * Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense or Foc, the pathogen of Panama disease/Fusarium wilt of banana

title: FOC


text:
Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2

The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) is a camera formerly installed on the Hubble Space Telescope. The camera was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is roughly the size of a baby grand piano. It was installed by servicing mission 1 (STS-61) in 1993, replacing the telescope's original Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC). WFPC2 was used to image the Hubble Deep Field in 1995, the Engraved Hourglass Nebula and Egg Nebula in 1996, and the Hubble Deep Field South in 1998. During STS-125, WFPC2 was removed and replaced with the Wide Field Camera 3 as part of the mission's first spacewalk on May 14, 2009. After returning to Earth, the camera was displayed briefly at the National Air and Space Museum and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before returning to its final home at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

Design
WFPC2 was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which also built the predecessor WFPC camera launched with Hubble in 1990. WFPC2 contains internal corrective optics to fix the spherical aberration in the Hubble telescope's primary mirror.

The charge-coupled devices (CCDs) in the WFPC2 (designed at JPL and manufactured by Loral) detected electromagnetic radiation in a range from 120 nm to 1000 nm. This included the 380 nm to 780 nm of the visible spectrum, all of the near ultraviolet (and a small part of the extreme ultraviolet band) and most of the near-infrared band. The sensitivity distribution of these CCDs is roughly normal, with a peak around 700 nm and concomitantly very poor sensitivity at the extremes of the CCDs' operating range. WFPC2 featured four identical CCD detectors, each 800x800 pixels. Three of these, arranged in an L-formation, comprise Hubble's Wide Field Camera (WFC). Adjacent to them is the Planetary Camera (PC), a fourth CCD with different (narrower-focused) optics. This afforded a more detailed view over a smaller region of the visual field. WFC and PC images are typically combined, producing the WFPC2's characteristic stairstep image. When distributed as non-scientific JPEG files the PC portion of the image is shown with the same resolution as the WFC portions, but astronomers receive a raw scientific image package which presents the PC image in its native, higher detail.

To allow scientists to view specific parts of the electromagnetic spectrum the WFPC2 featured a rotating wheel which moves different optical filters into the lightpath (between the WFPC2's aperture and the CCD detectors). The 48 filter elements included:

 * A set of standard wideband photometric filters.
 * A graduated filter, featuring a wide range of very narrowband filters. By positioning the target object at a precise part of the field, the operator can use an accurately picked narrowband filter.
 * A number of narrowband optical filters tuned to the wavelengths of various atomic emission lines.

Performance

As predicted, over the course of its mission the WFPC2 experienced degradation of the CCDs, resulting in defective ("hot") pixels. The telescope's operators performed monthly calibration tests to catalog these; with the WFPC's aperture closed a number of long exposures are taken, and pixels which differ significantly from near black are flagged. To avoid false positives caused by cosmic rays tripping a given pixel, the output of different calibration shots is compared. Pixels which are consistently "hot" are recorded, and astronomers who analyse raw WFPC2 images receive a list of these pixels. Typically, astronomers adjust their photo-processing software to ignore these bad pixels.

WFPC2 was largely superseded for broad-band imaging by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, installed during servicing mission 3B in 2002. However, the early 2007 failure of ACS resulted in WFPC2 returning to its role as Hubble's primary visible light camera. WFPC2 was removed from HST during Servicing Mission 4 in May 2009, for return to Earth and eventual museum display. It was replaced by Wide Field Camera 3, which features two UV/visible detecting CCDs, each 2048x4096 pixels, and a separate IR CCD of 1024 x 1024, capable of receiving infrared radiation up to 1700 nm.

title: Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2