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ROSAT Status Report #166: ROSAT NEWS No. 60 & ROSAT AO9 Announcement
Date: Thur, 14 May 1998 10:05:33 -0400
Subject: ROSAT Status Report #166: ROSAT NEWS No. 60 & ROSAT AO9 Announcement
ROSAT AO9
=========
NASA released the announcement soliciting observations for the ninth
round of ROSAT guest observations on May 13, 1998 (ANN 98-OSS-02).
Targets accepted during this round will be observed during the year
commencing around December 1998. Proposals will be due on July 31,1998.
There will be no funding directly associated with AO9. As recommended
by the 1996 NASA Senior Review, funding to support ROSAT
investigations, as well as those using other mature missions (such as
ASCA) is to be sought via the NASA Astrophysics Data Program (ADP).
Funding for ROSAT AO9 observations will be available though the next
ADP solicitation, which should be released around the beginning of 1999.
Electronic submission of both proposal forms and text will be required
for AO9. No paper copies will be accepted. Proposals text will be
accepted as postscript files only. For information regarding the
submission process, please refer to the appendices accompanying the
announcement. As has been the case in the past, proposal text is
limited to four pages, no more than three of which can be text.
All information and tools necessary for responding to this
announcement can be obtained via the ROSAT Guest Observer Facility WWW
site. (http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/rosat/rosgof.html) This
includes access to RPS and other observation planning software (Tools,
i.e. pimms, coco, viewing) and the appendices to the announcement.
=========================================================================
= =
= ROSAT NEWS No. 60 --- 14-May-1998 =
= =
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------=
= ROSAT Scientific Data Center at the =
= Max-Planck-Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) =
= Postfach 1603, D-85740 Garching, Germany =
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------=
= e-mail address: rosat_svc@mpe.mpg.de =
= ROSAT Service Area (including ROSAT Data Archive): =
= www address: http://wave.xray.mpe.mpg.de/rosat =
= ftp rosat_svc.mpe-garching.mpg.de user: anonymous =
= interactive account (including ROSAT Result Archive): =
= telnet xray.mpe-garching.mpg.de user: xray no password =
=-----------------------------------------------------------------------=
= XUV Center: GXUVDC@AIT.PHYSIK.UNI-TUEBINGEN.DE =
= WFC Archive access via telnet/ftp ait.physik.uni-tuebingen.de =
= user: xuv (password: xuv_archive) =
= www address: http://astro.uni-tuebingen.de/rosat.html =
=========================================================================
Contents: SATELLITE STATUS
ROSAT AO-9 - CALL FOR PROPOSALS
SPECTRAL RESOLUTION OF THE HRI DETECTOR
EXSAS RELEASE
SATELLITE STATUS
================
On April 25 GSOC (the German Space Operation Center) observed unusually
high temperatures in the battery package of ROSAT and commanded the
satellite into safemode. Subsequent investigations indicated that the
high temperatures were caused by a long sun-lit phase and are not a
severe problem. GSOC tried then to bring ROSAT back to normal operation
on Wednesday evening (April 29).
At that time the star camera, known to show hangups from time to time
that could always be overcome by switching it off and on, refused to
take up normal operation. The problem is under investigation but there
is almost no hope that a full functioning of the star camera (mounted to
the X-ray telescope) can be restored in the future.
If it is finally decided that the star camera is defect it shall be
replaced by the star camera of the XUV telescope. The onboard software
to use this camera in the attitude control loop has already been
developed. Preparations for implementing the new operation mode are in
progress to minimize the interruption of the mission timeline.
ROSAT AO-9 - CALL FOR PROPOSALS
=================================
After the positive decision in the Deutsches Zentrum f"ur Luft- und
Raumfahrt (DLR) to continue the support for the ROSAT mission in 1999,
the ROSAT Announcement of Opportunity (AO-9) has been issued. The
deadline to apply for ROSAT observations is July 31, 1998.
The full text of AO-9 has been sent out by the German Data Center via
email to those ROSAT users that had delivered proposals in previous
AO phases to the German Data Center. The USA and the UK are similarly
inviting their communities. In case you or colleagues interested to
propose for ROSAT have not personally received the Announcement of
Opportunity email, please get the Announcement via our web page on
http://wave.xray.mpe.mpg.de/rosat/ao-9
Here you will also find other information and utilities useful for
proposing for AO-9.
SPECTRAL RESOLUTION OF THE HRI DETECTOR
=======================================
The ROSAT Science Data Center at SAO and the ROSAT Guest Observer
Facility at GSFC announce the release of the:
'Spectral Calibration of the ROSAT HRI'
The ROSAT High Resolution Imager has a limited (2-band) spectral
response. This spectral capability can give X-ray hardness ratios on
spatial scales of 5 arcseconds. The spectral response of the center of
the detector was calibrated before the launch of ROSAT, but the gain
decreases with time and is also a function of position on the detector.
Over the past couple of years we have been engaged in a project to
calibrate the spectral response of the ROSAT HRI. We find that it is
possible to obtain scientifically useful hardness ratios for sources
near the center of the detector. The software and data products
required to analyze archival HRI data can be obtained from:
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/rosat/hrispec.html
or
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/rosat/rsdc_www/hrispec.html
or via anonymous FTP to: legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov
get rosat/software/hri/hrispec.tar.gz
Questions should be addressed to Andrea Prestwich
(prestwich@cfa.harvard.edu).
NEW EXSAS DISTRIBUTION FILES
============================
The new EXSAS release 98APR_EXP, already announced in the last issue of
the ROSAT NEWS, is now available for downloading. As a new feature
we provide this time also binary (directly executable) code for all of
the supported Operating Systems, thus releasing the necessity to compile
and link the source code at the users site.
Instructions and code may be downloaded via the www page:
http://wave.xray.mpe.mpg.de/exsas/how_to_get_exsas.html
or via the anonymous ftp account mentioned in the header (either
ftp> cd 98APR_EXP/binary or ftp> cd 98APR_EXP/source).
ftp> get INSTALL_binary.doc or ftp> get INSTALL_source.doc
==========================end of NEWS ===================================