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BeppoSAX U.S. Coordination Facility
[BeppoSAX] [BeppoSAX Email]

BeppoSAX e-mail news n. 3

                                                   24 December 1996
Dear BeppoSAX user,

this is the third BeppoSAX "e-mail news" message and covers the 
following topics:
        
   1. First release of BeppoSAX analysis software;
   2. First release of BeppoSAX calibration data;
   3. Crab data available on-line (to be used for software familiarization);
   4. Documentation update;
   5. First FOTs delivered to the BeppoSAX PI's;
   6. Satellite status.


                                 Paolo Giommi & Fabrizio Fiore
                                 BeppoSAX Science Data Center


1. First release of BeppoSAX analysis software
- ----------------------------------------------

The first release of the analysis software is forseen for December 31st 1996. 
The status as of today is the following:

 the SAXDAS software package version 1.0.0
 is available from our anonymous ftp service 

 ftp www.sdc.asi.it
 Name : anonymous
 cd /pub/sax/software/saxdas
 bin
 get SAXDAS_1.0.0.tar.gz

 the WFC software package version 0.40.0.30 
 is available from our anonymous ftp service 

 ftp www.sdc.asi.it
 Name : anonymous
 cd /pub/sax/software/wfc
 bin
 get wfc_full-040.030.tar.gz

 the XAS software packege will be on-line (from our anonymous ftp) within 
 January 15th 1997.


2. First release of BeppoSAX calibration data
- ---------------------------------------------

The first release of the BeppoSAX calbration data consists of:

a) a set of files used by the software packages.
   For SAXDAS these files can be retrived from our anonymous ftp service

 ftp www.sdc.asi.it
 Name : anonymous
 cd pub/sax/software/saxdas
 bin
 get SAXLEcaldb_1.3.0.tar.gz
 get SAXMEcaldb_1.2.0.tar.gz
  
   For XAS and WFC these files are already included in the software
   package.

b) the latest version of the response matrix for each BeppoSAX instrument.
The matrices are available for our anonymous ftp service 


 ftp www.sdc.asi.it
 Name : anonymous
 cd pub/sax/cal/responses/97_1
 bin
 mget *.arf
 mget *.rmf.gz
 mget *.rsp.gz 

 
3. Crab data available on-line (to be used for software familiarization)
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
To help our users in familiarising with the BeppoSAX reduction software,
data from a short observation of the Crab nebula have been made publicly
available. 

These data can be retrieved from our WEB service at the following 
URL http://www.sdc.asi.it/crab_data/

Whoever retrieves these files imlicitly agrees that no scientific use of 
these observations can be made before they are included in the BeppoSAX public
archive scheduled to open on January 1998.  

4. Documentation update
- -----------------------
Detailed documentation about the first BeppoSAX software and calibration 
release can be found at http://www.sdc.asi.it/software/
Please note that these pages are currently being completed and that 
a stable situation will be achieved around mid January 1997.

A cookbook is also being prepared. A preliminary version can be accessed at
http://www.sdc.asi.it/software/cookbook/


5. First FOTs delivered to the BeppoSAX PI's
- --------------------------------------------
The first BeppoSAX FOT's are being delivered starting from December 20.
The problems that hampered an earlier release (accurate attitude 
reconstruction and presence of spurious data) have now been largely solved.

6. Satellite status
- -------------------
After suffering some problems with the Attitude Control Computer the BeppoSAX 
satellite has now returned to normal routine operations. Observations 
of the Core Program and Guest Observers program are therefore progressing  
as planned. For updated information about the satellite status please refer 
to our web pages, in particular http://www.sdc.asi.it/latestnews.html



------------------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 

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