XMM-Newton-NEWS


XMM-Newton-NEWS  #161,    27-Feb-2014

XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre at
ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre,
P.O. Box - Apdo. 78, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, 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
News Mailing List: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/newsletter

Contents:



Users Group meeting #15: Invitation from UG chair to contact them

The XMM-Newton Users Group (UG) will hold its yearly meeting next 10th and 11th April at ESAC. As always, I would like to invite you to contact any of the members of the UG and/or myself if you have any sort of feedback, suggestion or topic that you would like the UG to discuss in relation to the XMM-Newton operations.

I would like to thank very specially the users that have been suggesting topics to the UG to improve operations of the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory. And as every year, I'd like to gently remind you all that the UG resorts very much on your views to fulfil our mission. Please contact me or any other UG member if you want any specific topic being addressed in the coming meeting.

Since this will be the last XMM-Newton UG meeting that I will have the honour to chair, I'd like to thank you all for keeping the observatory as the most productive ESA science mission.

Thanks for your help,

Xavier Barcons, Chair, XMM-Newton Users Group


A dedicated web page of the Users Group is available at:

     https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/users-group

This web page provides, among other information, the agenda for UG meeting #15 and contact points for all interested astronomers to send their comments to the UG members.


XSA v8.2 release with access to the XMM-Newton OM (v2) and the Slew Survey (Delta-6) Catalogues

A new version of the XMM-Newton Science Archive (XSA v8.2) is available at:

     https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/xsa

It includes, besides several improvements, access to version 2 of the XMM-Newton OM Catalogue and to the incremental version of the XMM-Newton Slew Survey Source Catalogue, XMMSL1 Delta-6.


New version of the XMM-Newton OM Catalogue

The second version of the XMM-Newton OM Serendipitous Ultraviolet Source Survey Catalogue (XMM-SUSS2) is available.

The XMM-SUSS2 catalogue can be accessed through the XSA search interface. Besides, either the complete catalogue or a reduced version of it can be downloaded.

In addition to covering a larger observation period (2000-2012), this release differs from the previous one by inclusion of the OM visible filters, besides the UV filters, and by performing source detection on stacked images facilitating the detection of fainter sources.

The number of observations included in the catalogue is 6604. The total number of entries in this second release is more than 5.5 million. They correspond to 4 million sources, of which 17% have multiple entries corresponding to different observations.


Incremental version of the XMM-Newton Slew Survey Catalogue: XMMSL1 Delta-6

An update to the XMM-Newton Slew Survey Source Catalogue (XMMSL1 Delta-6) is now available. It can be accessed and searched with XSA, or downloaded as a FITS table from the XSA web page.

The update contains new data from 390 slew observations made between revolutions 2012 and 2441. The new slews cover 14600 square degrees, and contain 12000 new detections of which 6500 are new sources in the clean catalogue. The total sky coverage of the slew catalogue is now around 65% and the total number of sources in the clean catalogue is 20163.

Documentation about the catalogue is available at:

     http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_products/slew_survey/xmmsl1d_ug.shtml

Scientific validation report for SASv13 and SASv13.5

The results of the scientific validation of SAS v13.0 and v13.5 have been summarised in a report now available under the SAS Scientific Validation page:

     http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_data_analysis/sas_validation/


Let us know about XMM-Newton related Ph.D.

The XMM-Newton team is collecting information about the completion of doctorates and Ph.D. theses based on (or making use of) XMM-Newton observations. Ideally, it is our intention to collect the complete list of Ph.D. works based on XMM-Newton data and this is why we need your help.

We would appreciate if you - being a candidate or supervisor of a doctorate - could let us know the following details:
Please contact us through the Helpdesk at:

     https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/xmm-newton-helpdesk

sending an e-mail with Subject: "Ph.D. thesis work". The message can be flagged as private. In any case, all provided information will be handled confidentially.



Yours sincerely,
XMM-Newton SOC