It is possible to analyze your ROSAT data using the XSELECT and FTOOLS software. This software reads the FITS events files directly, and writes out FITS data products directly (spectra, images, etc.), allowing a quick, clean, and easily transportable approach to data analysis.
The most recent release versions of FTOOLS and XSELECT are available via the anonymous FTP site in a subdirectory of the directory /software/ftools/release, and is available on the following platforms
unix ALPHA/OSF, DEC/ULTRIX, SUN/SunOS, Sun/Solaris,
MODCOMP/REALIX,
vms ALPHA/VMS, VAX/VMS
You will need to get the files:
ftools.vx.x.tar.Z - Source Code Distribution for all platforms
refdata.vx.x.tar.Z - Minimal subset of Calibration Database
where vx.x is a version number.
The Compressed Postscript Documentation is available at /software/ftools/release/doc and includes
develop.ps.Z - Developer's Guide
install.ps.Z - Installation Guide
users.ps.Z - User's Guide
techref.ps.Z - Complete User's Guide and help pages
Xselect_vx.x.ps.Z -
A ROSAT Users Guide to data analysis using XSELECT and FTOOLS is available in
postscript and LaTeX form from the heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov anonymous FTP area
under /rosat/doc/xselect_guide and via the www athttp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
docs/rosat/ros_xselect_guide/xselect.htmlThe ROSAT FTOOLS page on the World Wide Web describes the latest FTOOLS and perl scripts, the URL is http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/ftools/rosat.html
The current ROSAT package ftools are:
ROSAT perl scripts:abc - Apply Barycentric Corrections to ROSAT event data. bct - Produce a Barycenter Correction Table from ROSAT orbit data hriaspcor - Use Morse's method to correct aspect errors hriexpmap - Creates exposure map for given ROSAT HRI observational dataset hrirpsf - Calculates theoretical HRI PSF expmap - Creates exposure map for ROSAT PSPC observation pcrpsf - Calculates a theoretical radial PSF for the ROSAT PSPC img2us - Converts from German Image file format to US RFITS format pcarf - Generates a ROSAT PSPC ARF for an input PHA file pcparpha - Generates a background PHA spectrum for ROSAT PSPC gevt2rdf - Converts a German _events dataset to RDF _basformat hrifilt - Creates a ROSAT HRI makefilter file mkqsrc - Adds extra fields for quality screening to ROSAT source file pcfilt - Creates a ROSAT PSPC makefilter file src2pha - Creates a PHA file from specified extensions in an RDF src file
mk_allevt - Combines accepted and rejected events into one table.
fix_rev0_pha - This is a temporary script for fixing up PHA files
made from Rev0 data using the current extractor.
extpha - Extracts some or all of the extensions from a _src
file and makes individual PHA files out of them.
hiback - Script to create a qsrc file from a src file. Writes
high background value.
rosbary - Runs abc and bct Rosat ftools.
Useful 'general' tools include:
farith - Perform arithmetic on 2 FITS images
fdump - Dump contents of a FITS table to an ASCII file
fhelp - Display help pages for an FTOOL task
fkeyprint - Display keyword(s) in FITS header(s)
flcol - List column information in a FITS table extension
fplot - Plot columns in a FITS file using QDP/PLT package
fstatistic - Calculate mean, standard deviation, min, and max for
a column
fstruct - List a description of the structure of a FITS file
plist - List parameters from task parameter files
pset - Set one or more parameters in task parameter file
punlearn - Get a copy of the system parameter file (reset task
pars)
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