xronos -- a multi-mission X-ray timing analysis software package.
xronos
Xronos is a general purpose timing analysis package. Although it was designed mostly for X-ray astronomy, Xronos is basically detector and wavelength-independent. Xronos is a collection of programs, each dedicated to one task, that use a parameter file interface. Parameters may be specified as arguments when the tool is executed or prompted from within the tool.
The package contains the following programs:
ascii2flc - [P] creates a Xronos input FITS file from an ASCII file
autocor - calculates auto correlation for a time series
crosscor - calculates cross correlation of two time series
earth2sun - change times to solar system barycenter
efold - creates epoch folded lightcurve, hardness and color-color plots
efsearch - finds best chi-squared period by folding over range of periods
flc2ascii - [P] Dump Xronos input or output in ASCII file readable by QDP
lcmath - Subtracts or adds two binned lightcurves.
lcstats - calculates statistical variables a time series
lcurve - creates lightcurves, hardness and color-color plots
listdata - list data file on the screen
powspec - creates power spectrum density
rbf2fits - Converts the "EXOSAT rate buffer" format in FITS.
timeskew - calculates time skewness function for a time series
xronwin - [P] creates a window file suitable for Xronos tasks
[P] Perl script. You must have Perl installed to use this tool.
The way to use the Xronos programs is to execute the tasks (listed above) from the command line and answer the prompts. The display and graphic capabilities of the Xronos programs are based on the PGPLOT graphic package, which provides interactive scaling, labeling and fitting capabilities. Text-based help is available by running 'fhelp taskname'. Input and output files are in FITS format. Complete documentation and examples are available at http://xronos.gsfc.nasa.gov
Examples of how to run each are provided within the help for each task or on the web address. To invoke the task just type the task name on the command line, e.g. to run the program lcurve type
> lcurve
and after answer to each of the questions.
Report problems to xanprob@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov. Provide a detailed description of the problem (with a log file if possible).