XMM-Newton-NEWS

Contents:

• Version 9.0 of the Science Analysis System (SAS) released
• Updated SAS Web pages

Version 9.0 of the Science Analysis System (SAS) released

• integration of package esas (Extended Sources Analysis System) into SAS, including 14 new tasks. The package, developed by NASA/GSFC, is especially suited for the analysis of extended sources and diffuse background within EPIC data;
• new task emosaicproc, for EPIC mosaic data analysis, making possible the coherent source detection of overlapping EPIC exposures, also from different observations. Observations performed in the EPIC Mosaic Mode, publicly available since AO8, can be prepared for analysis with the task emosaic_prep;
• new task efluxer, for fluxing of EPIC spectra. It provides a good, model-independent, estimate of the total flux within [0.3-8.0] keV, as well as a reasonable representation of the spectrum above 0.5 keV;
• new task etruecolor, which eases the production of EPIC true color images;
• new tasks epsplitter and epsplitproc, for splitting and correctly processing split EPIC PN data. These tasks are aimed to solve problems caused by overly large PN event lists which currently require large amounts of memory to be processed;
• upgrade of the task eregionalyse, including derivation of upper limit significances;
• new tasks psfgen, for EPIC PSF generation using the calibration packages, and eradial, for comparison of a source radial profile with a theoretical PSF;
• new task emtaglenoise, for recognition of low energy noise in EPIC MOS data;
• upgrade of the task arfgen, including a more accurate calculation of the encircled energy correction for EPIC timing and burst mode spectra;
• upgrade of rgslccorr, the RGS light curve exposure and background correction task, which includes now the possibility of spectral / energy selections;
• upgrade of the task rgscombine, for handling of multiple orders and correct treatment of off-axis observations;
• upgrade of the task rgsregions, for analysis of very extended sources suffering from noise contamination;
• upgrade of the task omlcbuild, including Chi2 and Kolmogorov-SmirnovKS tests on OM light curves variability, and recording into the source list;
• upgrade of the task ommosaic, for source detection in OM mosaic images;
• new task ommergelists, for increased OM source detection sensitivity through merged source lists;
• new task omscattered, for removal of persistent central scattered light feature in OM images.

Updated SAS Web Pages