XMM-Newton-NEWS

XMM-Newton-NEWS #67, 13-Jul-2007

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

SOC Home Page:	https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/
Helpdesk web interface:	https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/xmm-newton-helpdesk
Helpdesk email address:	xmmhelp@sciops.esa.int
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Version 7.1.0 of the Science Analysis System (SAS) released
Workshop on-line proceedings available now
Users Group: presentations and minutes of meeting
Change in the RGS2 CCD readout mode
The 'images' script: a tool to create attractive EPIC images
Revision of the Extended Source Analysis Software (XMM-ESAS)

Version 7.1.0 of the Science Analysis System (SAS) released

The XMM-Newton SAS team is very pleased to announce the release of a new version of the SAS: SAS 7.1.0.

Binaries for diverse flavours of Linux, Solaris and MacOs are available, a virtual machine running on Microsoft Windows allowing to run SAS 7.1.0 will follow shortly.

The main changes in this version with respect to the former version, SAS 7.0.0, are:

EPIC

general upgrade of EPIC source detection routines, as performed for the extraction of the 2XMM sources catalogue
new task "espfilt" for soft proton and flare screening
EPIC pn temperature dependent gain correction introduced, to cope with the correlation of the pn gain with the temperature of the quadrant box electronics
pn FIFO reset correction implemented: to correct effective exposure time after resets, happening when saturation of detectors on chip amplifier stage causes a FIFO overflow
introduction of master offset tables for enabling correction of spatial energy shifts by pn
the package lccorr has been momentarily removed from the public distribution, due to deficiencies. These will be corrected in the near future and the task will be again available

RGS

new task "rgslccorr" for light curve background subtraction and exposure correction
new task "rgsfluxmodel" for exporting RGS flux spectrum as model to be used eg. by Xspec
"rgscombine" and "rgssuperrmf" able to use also background from modelling
recognition and proper handling of data taken in single readout node sub-mode

OM

OM grisms data processing has been improved in the following areas:
- improved astrometry: RA & Dec for the zero orders is more accurate
- possible shifts in the wavelength scale have been reduced
- better detection of the spectrum in field spectroscopy mode and better handling when spectra are close together
- fainter spectra are now extracted
- new method in the interactive 'omgsource'
new task, "omphotom" for interactive photometry. It can be used in image and fast modes and is particularly adapted for crowded fields in both modes. It complements the existing omsource.

CCF

Please notice that a new calibration constituent file is needed for the improvement achieved by the correction of spatial energy shifts for EPIC pn: EPN_REJECT_0004.CCF.

For further details on obtaining SAS 7.1.0 please visit our SAS pages available at:.

http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_sw_cal/sas.shtml

Workshop on-line proceedings available now

PDF presentations, posters and conference photos of the Science Workshop "XMM-Newton: The Next Decade" that took place at ESAC on 4th. to 6th. of June 2007 are available on the web now at:

http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_science/workshops/2007_science/

Users Group: presentations and minutes of meeting

The XMM-Newton Users Group met on the 7th. and 8th. of June 2007 at ESAC. Please find the agenda, presentations and minutes of this meeting at:

http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_user_support/usersgroup

Change in the RGS2 CCD readout mode

Following a period during which we have monitored occasional instability in one redundant Analogue-to-Digital Converter (ADC) chain of RGS2, starting on 17th. of August 2007 the readout for the scientific RGS2 exposures will be changed to use only the stable chain.

The implications for the RGS2 exposures are as follows:

Practical impacts for the system and for the user should be minimal. The CCD readout time will be doubled with impacts on the probability for pile-up for the brightest sources. Although the details depend on the spectral properties of the target and whether bright emission lines are expected, as a guideline pile-up problems should not occur for total RGS2 count rates below 30 c/s.

The SOC expects the RGS2 calibration to be re-established (in particular with regard to the charge transfer inefficiency (CTI)) around the time data affected by this change become available in the XMM-Newton archive (XSA). In case there is a short interval before updated calibration files become public astronomers are advised not to use RGS2 data taken after 17th. of August 2007 until the release of the new calibration files has been announced. Once the new calibration files have been released the change will be transparent to the SAS.

All of the above only affects RGS2, i.e. does *not* affect RGS1 in any way.

The 'images' script: a tool to create attractive EPIC images

The 'images' script is a shell script designed to reduce and combine data from the XMM-Newton pn and MOS cameras to produce attractive X-ray images in several user-defined energy bands. In order to use this script the Science Analysis Software (SAS) must be correctly installed and the SAS environment set.

The script performs several corrections to the EPIC data including:

filtering for periods of high background
removal of bad pixels and columns
spatial smoothing
exposure correction
merging of pn and MOS data

Within the script package is full documentation including a guide to using the final products of 'images' to make false-colour images.

The script and further details are available from:

http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_science/gallery/utils/images.shtml

Revision of the Extended Source Analysis Software (XMM-ESAS)

The EPIC Background Working Group announces the release of an extensive revision of the XMM-ESAS code and scripts.

As advertised in XMM-Newton-NEWS #56, XMM-ESAS provides a set of tools to help in the analysis and interpretation of the background for extended sources. Currently the software works for the MOS detectors only.

Among other upgrades, XMM-ESAS now includes soft proton modeling and mosaicking software for image processing. The users manual has been updated, the example scripts have been edited, and the test cases have been reprocessed.

Note that because of the many upgrades, the calling parameters for some scripts and programs have changed. In these cases, the tasks are not backwards compatible.

The XMM-ESAS package is available from the SOC at:

http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_sw_cal/background/epic_esas.shtml

and from the NASA Guest Observer Facility (GOF) at:

http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xmm/xmmhp_xmmesas.html

Yours sincerely,
XMM-Newton SOC