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Cookbook for NFI Scientific Data Analysis


Currently, any Guest Observer receives a tape (Final Observing Tape, FOT) containing reformatted telemetry data of his/her observation. BeppoSAX team provides all the needed software to reduce such data and produce final scientific products (images and pseudo-images, light curves, spectra etc.) for each BeppoSAX instrument.

As described elsewhere, BeppoSAX scientific data can be reduced using two different software packages, which reflect also into two different phylosophies:

LECS and MECS allow position (X,Y), time (T) and energy (E) of each photon to be recorded. PDS and HPGSPC provide information on time and energy for each detected photon, if used, as most of the time, in direct modes, since they do not have imaging capabilities. So we may say that the result of an observation is a vector in a four (two) dimentional space (actually this space can have even higher dimension, since each photon is characterized by further quantities (risetime or burstlenght information, veto information etc etc.) which are do not strictly concern scientific analysis).
Even if in XAS we accumulate direclty spectra or time series, nevertheless, the original data are still a four dimentional vector.

After (or simultaneously, as in the case of XAS) data reduction, the observer always performs the following three operations:

Whatever software the observer uses to reduce the data she/he produceds a final (projected) product of same sort, which has to be analyzed and interpreted.
The analysis of the scientific products can be in principle fully performed with FTOOLS and XANADU package.

  • Spectral Analysis
  • Response Matrices
  • Spatial Analysis
  • LECS & MECS Point Spread Function
  • Temporal Analysis
  • Background
  • SDC report on LECS \& MECS internal background
  • NFI cross-calibration
  • Attitude Reconstruction
  • Dead Time Correction
  • WFC Crab spectral calibration
  • handbook for NFI spectral analysis
  • intercalibration between ASCA and BeppoSAX instruments
  • MECS analysis of extended sources

  • Please send questions/problem reports to: helpdesk@sax.sdc.asi.it