THE STIS PARALLEL SURVEY - INTRODUCTION AND FIRST RESULTS

The installation of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) allows for the first time two-dimens ional optical and ultraviolet slitless spectroscopy of faint objects f rom space. The STIS Parallel Survey (SPS) routinely obtains broadband images and slitless spectra of random fields in parallel with HST obse rvations using other instruments. The SPS is designed to study a wide variety of astrophysical phenomena, including the rate of star formati on in galaxies at intermediate to high redshift through the detection of emission-line galaxies. We present the first results of the SPS, wh ich demonstrate the capability of STIS slitless spectroscopy to detect and identify high-redshift galaxies.