AGILE Progress Status

update Jan. 12, 2008

The AGILE satellite will be pointing at the Galactic plane near the Carina Region (Gal. coordinates l= 287.8 b= 161.6) for a 1-week period starting on Jan. 12, 18:00 UT, until Jan. 19, 18:00 UT."

update June. 10, 2008

Following a TeV outburst from the BL Lac W Comae reported by the VERITAS Collaboration in ATEL #1565, AGILE repointed at the source on June 9 2008, 16:00 UTC.The AGILE pointing coordinates at the beginning of the ToO pointing period are:
RA(J2000) = 182.3 deg = 12h 9m 8.3s Dec(J2000) = 29.6 deg = 29° 36' 50.4" (galactic coordinates: l = 195.5 b = 80.4) This special pointing will last until June 15, 2008 12:00 UTC.Multifrequency observations are strongly encouraged.

update May. 27, 2008

A preliminary maximum likelihood analysis of the AGILE-GRID (Gamma-Ray Imaging Detector) data obtained between 2008-05-22 06:00 UT and 2008-05-27 06:00 UT for photon energies above 100 MeV results in a detection significance of about 6 sigma, with a source flux in excess of 100e-8 ph/cm2/s at energies above 100 MeV. The source positional error box is centered at Galactic coordinates l = 77.9 deg, b = 2.6 deg, and has a radius of about 0.5 degrees. We note that the possible counterpart IGR J20187+4041 = 2MASX J20183871+4041003 (ATel #1497, #1498, #1518) lies within the 95% source location contour.

update May. 08, 2008

SuperAGILE and AGILE/MCAL detected a gamma ray burst on May 14th, at 09:55:56 UT. The event was localized by SuperAGILE at approximately 38 degrees off axis, in the one-dimensional portion of its field of view, thus providing a narrow and long error box. The narrow side is 6 arcmin wide, while the long side is approximately 40 degrees wide. In the 20-60 keV energy range the event had a 10s duration, with a multi-peaked structure

update May. 08, 2008

SuperAGILE detected and localized a gamma ray burst on May 7th, at 07:45:00 UT. The event was detected during the passage of the AGILE spacecraft through the South Atlantic Anomaly and this caused the non-detection by the automatic burst search procedures, and the delayed identification thereof.

update Apr. 29, 2008

AGILE gamma-ray detection of a variable source in the Cygnus region.

update Apr. 22, 2008

5th Science AGILE Workshop
We are pleased to announce the 5th Science AGILE Workshop "AGILE first year of gamma-ray astrophysics" to be held on June 12-13, 2008 at ASI-ASDC c/o ESA/ESRIN, Frascati .

update Feb. 12, 2008

Following an alert by a TeV observatory, the AGILE satellite carried out a repointing at Galactic coordinates l = 77.30 b = 40.62 during the period 09-12 Feb., 2008.Starting on Feb. 12, 2008 (12:00 UT) AGILE returned to its baseline pointing in the Southern Galactic emisphere at l = 237.5  b = -44.6. This pointing will last until Feb. 14, 12:00 UT.

update Jan. 8, 2008

AGILE completed a successful observation of the Northern Galactic emisphere centered near the Virgo region. Many AGNs in the field were monitored and several multifrequency campaigns were carried out. The on-board GRB trigger mode was temporarily disabled on Jan. 4th.

update Dec. 18, 2007

Since Dec. 16, 2007 AGILE is pointing at the Northern Galactic emisphere near the Virgo region (l = 256.7 b = 56.7). This pointing is planned to last until Jan. 8, 2008. Multifrequency observations of several interesting blazars in the field is strongly encouraged.

update Nov. 22, 2007

During the observation of the Cygnus region, AGILE detected significant gamma-ray emission from the blazar 3C 454.3. Two Astronomical Telegrams have been issued (n. 1278, 1300). A planned test session of the Instrument is ongoing. The MCAL GRB search procedure has been successfully activated.

update Nov. 12, 2007

The month of November, 2007 is devoted to the observation of the Cygnus region. During this month, AGILE will perform some functional tests and the activation of the GRB on-board search logic of its X-ray and gamma-ray detectors.

update Oct. 10, 2007

AGILE is completing the Science Verification Phase with a dedicated long pointing in the Galactic anticenter region. The month of September, 2007 and the beginning of October were devoted to the gamma-ray and hard X-ray calibrations with the Crab Nebula & Pulsar. Starting on Oct. 13, AGILE will point near the Galactic Center region until the end of the month of October, 2007.

update Sept. 12, 2007

AGILE started the calibration pointing at the Crab Nebula sky field in the second half of August, 2007. During these observations, a strong gamma-ray flaring activity was detected from the Bl Lac 0716+714. This source continued to be monitored as AGILE slewed towards the Galactic plane for a pointing centered at the Galactic binary system LSI +61 303 during the period Sept. 3-12, 2007 .

update Aug. 30, 2007

AGILE completed at the end of August a long pointing at the Galactic plane region containing the Vela PSR. This pointing is important to calibrate the gamma-ray response of the instrument with a bright and stable source at different inclination angles (from a few to 50 degrees).

update on July 4, 2007

AGILE has completed on July 3, 2007 its 1,000th orbit and it is completing the Commissioning phase.Several AGILE preliminary results were presented on Jul. 2, 2007 at an ASI-ESRIN meeting on Gamma-Ray Astrophysics in Italy.

In particular:- The hard X-ray imager SuperAGILE clearly detected a flare of the source GX301-2. Though preliminary, this first light of SuperAGILE is very promising.

- A gamma-ray burst was detected by all active detectors on June 22. The burst position turned out to be about 80 degrees off-axis.

- The AGILE calorimeter has clearly detected emission in the 600 keV

- 2 MeV energy range from the June 22 burst.

- The gamma-ray imager confirms its unprecedently large field ofview near 2.5-3 sr.

update on June 12, 2007

The Commissioning phase of the AGILE satellite goes on. Several configuration tests have been carried out until June 4th for optimization of the gamma-ray imaging detector (GRID).

The hard X-ray detector (Super-AGILE) is currently (June 11, 2007) being configured and tested.

The goal is to achieve a complete gamma-ray/hard X-ray imaging configuration of the instrument by June 18th.

update on May 7, 2007

The AGILE satellite was successfully launched by the Indian rocket PSLV-C8 on

April 23, 2007.

The satellite orbit is equatorial:

The spacecraft started a functional commissioning phase on April 24.

The satellite fine-pointing attitude was successfully achieved on April 29th.

Starting on May 2, the instrument detectors are being turned on and checked.

All functional tests are providing nominal results.