05 December 1997 Dear BeppoSAX user, this is the fifth BeppoSAX "e-mail news" message and covers the following topics: 1. Release of SAXDAS 1.3.0 software 2. Release of XAS 2.1 software 3. Release of WFC 104 (stage I) and 107 (Stage II) software 4. Release of new improved calibrations 1. Release of SAXDAS 1.3.0 software - ---------------------------------- The software now works with FTOOLS versions 3.5, 3.6 and 4.0. Please note the the ftools4.0 August 1997 release needs the following routines to be updated: ----------------------------------------- NAME LOCATION UNDER FTOOLS TREE ------------------------------------------ pquery.c xanlib/xpi/ extevh.f xselect/extractor/extevh.f extractor.f xselect/extractor/extractor.f Updates can be found under ftp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/software/ftools/release/other/pquery.c ftp://lheaftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/kaa/ftools/extevh.f ftp://lheaftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/kaa/ftools/extractor.f The new distribution of SAXDAS software consists of: SAXDAS_1.3.0.tar.gz SAXDAS software, release 28 Nov. 1997 SAXLEcaldb_1.5.0.tar.gz SAXDAS LECS cal. files for data reduction SAXMEcaldb_1.4.0.tar.gz SAXDAS MECS cal. files for data reduction SAXPDcaldb_1.2.0.tar.gz SAXDAS PDS cal. files for data reduction saxdas_install.ps how to install SAXDAS xselect_saxpatch_ftools3.6.tar.gz SAX patch to xselect 1.3 (ftools3.6) xselect_saxpatch_ftools4.0.tar.gz SAX patch to xselect 1.3 (ftools4.0) What's new ---------- a) SAXDAS now supports PDS data reduction (direct modes 1, 2 and 6). PDS data reduction is very similar to LECS and MECS data reduction, using the same script (SAXPIPE). Data are translated to fits format, observations are concatenated, housekeeping are translated in physical units, events from the 4 PDS units are equalized and screened for fixed RiseTime thresholds. Finally, data are screened for Earth occultation and periods of high particle background and/or instable gain (the first few minutes after the passage in the South Atlantic Anomaly). We also provide a script (PDPRODUCTS) to extract from equalized and screened event files, background subtracted spectra and light curves. PDPRODUCTS produces coadded background subtracted spectra from the 4 PDS units and merged lightcurves in user defined PI bands. Please note that the spectra always contains counts accumulated from all 4 PDS units (and then most of the time accumulated typically for 40 % of the on target MECS exposure time, because of the collimators rocking mode usually adopted). On the other hand, light curves count rates usually refer to the events accumulated in 2 PDS units (in the standard collimator rocking mode 2 units are always on source while the other 2 units monitor the background). Therefore usually count rates in spectra are twice the count rates in the light curves. Full documentation on the PDS specific programs, scripts and pipelines is in preparation. We hope to put on line this documentation on our WEB site (www.sdc.asi.it/software) as soon as possible. b) New improved Burst-Length selection is now used in LECS data reduction. This, together with the new released response matrix, strongly reduces the strength of instrumental systematic features in the LECS spectra below 0.5 keV. c) A new calibration of the telescope misallignement with respect to the satellite z axis is now used in MECS data reduction. d) several minor bugs have been corrected. 2. Release of XAS 2.1 software - ------------------------------ What's new ---------- a) improved gain calibration for the calculation of MECS response matrix. b) improved gain calibration and algorithms to calculate PDS response matrix. c) fix of several small bugs. 3. Release of WFC 104 (stage I) and 107 (Stage II) software - --------------------------------------------------------- The new distribution of the wide field camera (WFC) software consists of: wfc_full-104.107.tar.gz, containing a. the software for Stage I (version 104) and Stage II (version 107) data processing, b. documentation files What's new ---------- a) The software now works with both FTOOLS version 3.6 and version 4.0. b) The stageI program w_proc now has a switch -w1 or -w2 to process files for only 1 of the wide field camera's. c) The program "cerr" (catalog error) has been added to stageII "cerr" computes the distance between the observed and the catalog position for a source. It acts on an output .res file from the program iros. This program requires the library SLALIB, which is called for in the Makefile. For further details, see the Release notes included in the distribution. 4. Release of new improved calibrations - ------------------------------------- The September 1997 calibration release consist of new LECS, MECS, PDS and HPGSPC response matrices. A syntetic comparison between the results obtained on Crab spectra using the January 1997 and the September 1997 response matrices can be found at: http://www.sdc.asi.it/software/cookbook/cross_cal.html More in detail, the main changes with respect to the January 1997 release are: a) LECS: 1) a better evaluation of the instrument resolution below 0.3 keV; 2) a new improved Burst-Lenght selection to discriminate source events from background events. This strongly reduces the strength of instrumental systematic features in the LECS spectra below 0.5 keV. 3) A better treatement of the penetration effect. Nevertheless, LECS data above 4-5 keV should still be used with care. b) MECS: a new improved calibration of the Energy-PI curve, which cures small systematic errors (about 50 eV) in the evaluation of the energy of line features above the Xe edges (E> 4.78 keV). c) PDS: extension of the useful range down to 13-15 keV; improved equalization; treatment of the Compton interactions, which implies the addition of non-diagonal elements in the response matrix. d) HPGSPC: Improved calibration of the Energy-PI curve. We provide in our anonymous ftp site (www.sdc.asi.it) and its mirror at HEASARC (legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov) the new LECS and MECS resolution matrices (.rmf files), new LECS and MECS effective areas (.arf files) for a number of extraction radii and a number of raw detectoror positions (LECS only), new HPGSPC resolution matrix and effective area, new PDS response matrices (including both resolution matrix and effective area) for a 128 and 256 linearly rebinned channel spectrum and a 60 logarithmically rebinned channel spectrum. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SAXDAS, XAS and WFC software packages, the September 1997 issue of response matrices and the May 1997 and September 1997 issue of background files are available from our anonymous ftp service: ftp www.sdc.asi.it Name : anonymous cd /pub/sax/software/ dir 512 Aug 13 12:27 . 512 Dec 23 1996 .. 458646 Aug 7 1996 auxdata.tar.gz 1024 Mar 27 1997 develop 370680 Apr 9 1997 nhtar.tar.gz 512 Aug 11 18:02 pimms 512 Aug 13 12:19 rxcc 1024 Dec 1 16:52 saxdas 512 Aug 12 15:41 scripts 635213 Sep 12 1996 viewing.tar.Z 512 Nov 24 11:35 wfc 512 Aug 28 14:53 xas 1836637 Jun 11 15:24 ximage.tar.gz 2842624 Jun 11 15:24 ximage_osf cd saxdas dir 639 Nov 28 19:40 README 1832480 Dec 4 16:47 SAXDAS_1.3.0.tar.gz 139402 Nov 28 17:17 SAXLEcaldb_1.5.0.tar.gz 182065 Nov 27 18:22 SAXMEcaldb_1.4.0.tar.gz 6431 Nov 27 18:20 SAXPDcaldb_1.2.0.tar.gz 1574838 Aug 2 1996 gcc-2.7.0-2.7.1.diff 7029728 Aug 2 1996 gcc-2.7.0.tar.gz 73225 Aug 2 1996 gcc-2.7.1-2.7.2.diff 512 Nov 28 16:28 old 71555 Aug 2 1996 patch-2.1.tar.gz 17099 Nov 28 19:37 saxdas_install.ps 107211 Dec 1 16:51 xselect_saxpatch_ftools3.6.tar.gz 104545 Dec 1 16:51 xselect_saxpatch_ftools4.0.tar.gz cd xas dir 225 Feb 19 1997 CHANGES_2.0.2 319 Jun 27 16:45 CHANGES_2.0.3 349 Dec 3 17:43 CHANGES_2.1 512 Dec 4 10:48 HT 512 Dec 3 17:36 old 3817030 Dec 4 10:48 xas_2.1.tar.gz cd wfc dir 512 Nov 24 11:33 old_dist_101_104 1534440 Nov 24 11:34 wfc_full-104.107.tar.gz 3592 Nov 24 11:36 wfc_release_notes_104_107 cd pub/sax/cal dir 512 Sep 15 14:16 bgd 512 Oct 28 10:57 caldb 512 Oct 30 16:09 crab 512 Sep 1 13:15 responses cd bgd dir 1024 Sep 15 14:12 97_1 1024 Oct 10 08:24 97_5 512 Sep 15 14:16 97_9 512 Dec 19 1996 pre-flight_estimates cd crab dir 14400 Oct 30 16:09 Crab_hpgspc_Sep97.pha 103680 Oct 30 16:08 Crab_lecs_8_Sep97.pha 109440 Oct 30 16:08 Crab_mecs1_8_Sep97.pha 132480 Oct 30 16:08 Crab_mecs2_8_Sep97.pha 138240 Oct 30 16:08 Crab_mecs3_8_Sep97.pha 158400 Oct 30 16:08 Crab_mecs_8_Sep97.pha 14400 Oct 30 16:08 Crab_pds_Sep97.pha cd responses dir 1024 Dec 23 1996 96_12 512 Dec 19 1996 96_5 512 Dec 19 1996 96_9 1024 May 30 1997 97_1 1536 Sep 1 13:17 97_9 512 May 2 1997 grouping cd responses/97_9 dir 23040 Sep 1 13:16 hpgspc_sep97.arf 1022400 Sep 1 13:16 hpgspc_sep97.rmf 20160 Sep 1 13:16 lecs_130_124_8_sep97.arf 20160 Sep 1 13:16 lecs_130_126_8_sep97.arf 20160 Sep 1 13:16 lecs_130_128_8_sep97.arf 1961280 Sep 1 13:16 lecs_sep97.rmf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs1_2_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs1_3_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs1_4_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs1_6_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs1_8_sep97.arf 1221120 Sep 1 13:16 mecs1_sep97.rmf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs23_2_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs23_3_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs23_4_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs23_6_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs23_8_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs2_2_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs2_3_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs2_4_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs2_6_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs2_8_sep97.arf 1221120 Sep 1 13:16 mecs2_sep97.rmf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs3_2_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs3_3_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs3_4_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs3_6_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs3_8_sep97.arf 1221120 Sep 1 13:16 mecs3_sep97.rmf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs_2_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs_3_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs_4_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs_6_sep97.arf 23040 Sep 1 13:16 mecs_8_sep97.arf 515520 Sep 1 13:17 pds_128_aug97.rmf 1005120 Sep 1 13:17 pds_256_aug97.rmf 256320 Sep 1 13:17 pds_60_aug97.rmf The same files are also available from the HEASARC mirror: ftp://legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov/sax BeppoSAX Science Data Center ------------------BeppoSAX SDC useful addresses and numbers---------------- WWW home page http://www.sdc.asi.it/ anonymous ftp www.sdc.asi.it phone +39 6 40796307 (M.E. Pennisi, SDC secretary) fax +39 6 40793855, +39 6 40796291 e-mail helpdesk@sax.sdc.asi.it p-mail address BeppoSAX Science Data Center ASI c/o Nuova Telespazio via Corcolle 19 00131 Roma Italy how to reach us http://www.sdc.asi.it/howreach.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------