Bugs/Features in the ASCA data analysis software
Last updated on 1998 Jan 13
Please also check known FTOOLS bugs and known XSPEC bugs.
- addascaspec (v1.21): (1) The name used for the first command-line
parameter for 'addarf' is not compatible with the latest 'addarf' in
ftools release v4.0. The parameter name should be 'list', instead of
'in_ARFs'.
(2) mathpha 4.3.0 and other most versions do not
correctly update the BACKSCAL keyword in the combined source
spectrum (the value has to be set to 1.0).
This results in a wrong amount of background subtraction. In the
modified version of addascaspec (see below), fparkey is always called to
update the BACKSCAL value.
This bug was fixed in the ftools tarfile created 16:04 EST Aug 5, 1997.
- ascascreen: If only one file is read into ascascreen and SIS or
GIS cleaning is requested then the resulting events list is not mkf filtered.
This problem is most likely to show up when analyzing SIS BRIGHT2 data.
Ascascreen runs on raw (ft*.fits) files are unlikely to have been affected,
because there are generally dozens of input files; even with unscreened
(ad*.unf) files, if the datamode selected mixes together High and Medium bit
rate then the bug will not be triggered.
(Thanks to Vinay Kashyap for helping us spot this one).
This bug was fixed in the ftools tarfile created 16:04 EST Aug 5, 1997.
- xselect/extractor:
- The xselect 'filter phase' command does not work under Solaris and does not work under other systems unless other time filtering is also being performed. The problem is actually in the extractor ftool.
- The output value of the MJD-OBS keyword is incorrect. This causes timeconv to fail. We are not aware of any other consequences. A workaround for an individual file is to get the values of TSTART and MJDREF then use fparkey to set MJD-OBS to the value of TSTART/86400+MJDREF. Note that if you ran timeconv with extrapolate=yes then you need to remake the event file.
- Extract dies under HP-UX if no xronos window files are in use.
- Extractor crashes on detectors that are not square.
- Extracting light curves sometimes gives no counts in the output and produces a warning message about truncating the light curve.
- 'clear time file' or 'clear time all' do not remove the filter when an ascii time filter file is used, although 'show status' does indicate that the filter has been used.
- Extractor incorrectly decreases the values of the CRPIX keywords by one pixel.
- Extracting spectra using sky coordinates
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