XMM-Newton-NEWS


XMM-NEWTON NEWS #4,   27-Apr-2001

ESA, XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre at
European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC)
P.O. Box - Apdo. 50727, 28080 Madrid, Spain

SOC Home Page: http://xmm.esac.esa.int/
Helpdesk web interface: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/xmm-newton-helpdesk
Helpdesk email address: xmmhelp@sciops.esa.int
News Mailing List: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/newsletterindex.shtml

Contents:



Dear Colleagues,

Tell us about your XMM-Newton publications and PR activities

We encourage the community to inform the XMM-Newton Helpdesk (email: xmmhelp@sciops.esa.int) about all the papers publishing XMM-Newton data. This will allow us to link the observations in the XMM-Newton Science Archive with the related publications.

Please, be reminded that all publications which make use of XMM-Newton data must include the following acknowledgment:

"This work is based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the USA (NASA)."

In addition, the Project Scientist would appreciate to be informed via email (fjansen@astro.estec.esa.nl) about all planned press releases and other public relation activities which are related to XMM-Newton.

We thank you very much in advance for your attention and help on this subject.

Clarification: Naming conventions for sources found by individual researchers

It has been spotted by the the IAU "Clearing House" of Commission 5 Working Group on Designations that there is a modification needed in the proposed naming convention for the XMM-Newton sources detected by individual researchers:

It should have been XMMU JHHMMSS.s+/-DDMMSS and *** NOT *** XMMUJ HHMMSS.s+/-DDMMSS

e.g.
    source position: RA 03 10 15.1, Dec -76 51 31.2 (J2000)
    recommended acronym: XMMU J031015.1-765131

    source position: RA 17 23 48.7, Dec +82 17 33.8 (J2000)
    recommended acronym: XMMU J172348.7+821733

The coordinates for the designation are "truncated" and not "rounded".
XMMU is intended to be used for those serendipitous sources which need to be referenced in a paper.

For work involving exploitation of the full set of serendipitously detected sources in one or multiple XMM-Newton fields we recommend the XMMAA, XMMAAA, etc. approach. Here AA or AAA represent the authors' initials, and should be used for large interim surveys provided that the authors have submitted their acronym to the Acronym Registry (for further details see the IAU Specifications for Nomenclature web page at http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/iau-spec.html).

The discussion on how to name OM detected sources is still ongoing with the "Clearing House" members. For the time being we propose to name them XAU JHHMMSS.s+/-DDMMSS to distinguish them from XMM-Newton sources detected in X-rays.

Target of Opportunity Notification Page

The XMM-Newton SOC has released to the public now its Target of Opportunity (ToO) Notification Web Page which is available at;
http://xmm.esac.esa.int/user/too/too_alert_top.html

This page forms the unique interface for the submission of all ToO proposals. The proposer will need to enter important target information which is further used to validate the request. The page also informs about the terms of reference which do apply for the proposal evaluation, data reduction and publication.

SAS status & RGS calibration problem

The further development and maintenance of the XMM-Newton Science Analysis System (SAS) is continuing at high pace. Significant updates of the tasks and calibrations have been implemented. Testing is ongoing to make the SAS ready for the next public release (SAS 5.1) which currently is foreseen for June 2001.

In order to prepare for the intermediate SAS release to be used by the Processing Pipeline Subsystem (PPS), for some time, the combination of SAS 5.0 with the calibration files RGS1_CROSSPSF_0002.CCF and RGS2_CROSSPSF_0002.CCF was used. This created inappropriate selection regions on the cross-dispersion versus dispersion plane.

It has been decided by the project scientist that this was not serious enough to justify to hold the release of the products. Due to many changes in the calibrations of RGS over that period, the user is advised anyhow to re-run the processing and extract new spectra with most recent calibration files.

The Survey Science Center (SSC) has provided a list of obs-id's where RGS spatial images extraction regions in the PPS products were strangely defined. Of the 171 product sets delivered to the SOC so far 96 are affected. The attached list of observation IDs is that of product sets delivered by the SSC to the SOC in which the product *CALIND* includes the filenames RGS?_CROSSPSF_0002.CCF, i.e. those affected by use of the incorrect calibration files.

To be informed of the periodic updates to the CCF (Current Calibration Files) you might consider subscribing to the CCF mailing list (http://xmm.esac.esa.int/mailman/listinfo/ccf/). You can visit the list archives at http://xmm.esac.esa.int/pipermail/ccf/, too.

XMM-Newton data CD-ROM production

The production of the CD-ROMs containing XMM-Newton data (ODFs and PPS products) is fully operational. At the time of this bulletin, 164 CD-ROMs have already been shipped to the corresponding observation PIs.

The goal is to ship CD-ROMs to the PIs within 30 days from the observation.

For all the observations performed later than February 16 2001, CD-ROMs are produced on a real-time line. Earlier observations are being reprocessed in a dedicated back-up production line. The reprocessing will be completed within a few months.

XMM-Newton Science Archive (XSA)

The first version of the XMM-Newton Science Archive (XSA) will be online at the time when the data rights for the first GT observations will have expired (March 2002).

In the meanwhile, SAS scientific validation datasets are accessible through the URL: http://xmm.esac.esa.int/public/xmm_sas_sv_top.html.


With best regards,
The XMM-Newton User Support Group

List of ODF product sets affected by the wrong RGS spatial extraction region problem (as provided by the SSC)

ODF #     |     PI (CAL=calibration target; PV=Performance Verification)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
0007420701      Parmar
0007420801      Parmar
0007421001      Parmar
0007421801      Parmar
0007421901      Parmar
0007422001      Parmar
0007422101      Parmar
0007422201      Parmar
0007422301      Parmar
0007425001      Parmar
0008220201      Gondoin
0018741001      Edge
0042340501      Boehringer
0051590301      Kallman
0060740101      Liedhal
0060740601      Liedhal
0067190301      Porquet
0080940401      Maraschi
0080940501      Maraschi
0083280201      Kaper
0083280501      Kaper
0084140101      McBreen
0084230301      Kneib
0085110201      Churazov
0087940101      Hughes
0093552701      Charles
0093553001      Charles
0093640901      Bauer
0093650201      Murray
0094360201      Quataert
0098610101      PV
0098610201      PV
0099280501      CAL
0099280601      CAL
0100240101      Jansen
0100240201      Jansen
0100240801      Jansen
0101040301      Jansen
0101040401      Jansen
0101040601      Jansen
0101440401      Pallavicini
0102040201      Jansen
0102041001      Jansen
0103660201      Aschenbach
0105870101      Aschenbach
0106260201      Aschenbach
0106460101      Aschenbach
0108670401      Mushotzky
0109090101      Mason
0109130901      Mason
0109530401      Mason
0109950101      Brinkman
0109950201      Brinkman
0109980301      Bleeker
0109990501      Bleeker
0110661401      Jansen
0110920201      Watson
0110980701      Jansen
0111080301      Brinkman
0111150101      Watson
0111150201      Watson
0111150601      Watson
0111390201      Brinkman
0111490301      Brinkman
0112310301      Turner
0112650401      Aschenbach
0112650601      Aschenbach
0112670301      Brinkman
0112670401      Brinkman
0112830501      Griffiths
0112830601      Griffiths
0112870101      Aschenbach
0112870701      Aschenbach
0112880901      Aschenbach
0112910101      Turner
0112910301      Turner
0112910401      Turner
0113050201      Turner
0113050801      Turner
0124712201      PV
0124712301      PV
0125320501      CAL
0132121901      CAL
0132122001      CAL
0132122101      CAL
0132122401      CAL
0132132301      CAL
0132530401      CAL
0132530501      CAL
0133120701      CAL
0134531301      CAL
0134540301      CAL
0134561301      CAL
0134920901      CAL
0135120201      Bleeker
0135120801      Bleeker