National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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                         RELEASE NOTES FOR HEASOFT 6.15.1
                                January 28, 2014
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The HEASoft 6.15.1 release is driven by updates to the NuSTAR and Swift/XRT
data analysis software.

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                                    HEAGEN
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- barycorr: Updated keywords were {RA,DEC}_NOM, now changed to
  {RA,DEC}_OBJ to avoid interference with operation of Swift and
  NuSTAR software; no known impact to RXTE or Chandra; add new
  keywords TREFPOS & TREFDIR which adhere to new Rots et al. draft
  standard for timing keywords.

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                                    NUSTAR
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NuSTARDAS version 1.3.1:

Major changes introduced in this version:

- nuexpomap: addition of the keyword 'PIXBIN' and 'PERCENT' to the
  header of the output sky exposure maps.

- nulccorr: update of the value of the 'DEADAPP' keyword to 'True' in
  the output light-curve

- nupipeline: 1) addition of the new input parameters 'barycorr',
  'clockfile', 'srcra_barycorr' and 'srcdec_barycorr'; 2) modified the
  call to the module 'nuproducts' to enable the barycenter correction

- nuproducts: 1) addition of the new input parameter 'barycorr' to optionally
  apply the barycenter correction to output files with internal runs of the
  multi-mission FTOOL 'barycorr'; 2) addition of the energy filtering of the
  output sky images through the input parameters 'pilow' and 'pihigh'.

Summary of changes:

* nupipeline/nuproducts:

  Allows the pipeline to produce barycenter corrected event files and
  lightcurves via a new keyword passed to the "nuproducts" script. The
  user may set the RA/DEC of the object using the 'srcra_barycorr' and
  'srcdec_barycorr' keywords to nupipeline and/or nuproducts.

  Output sky images are now filtered using the "pilow" and "pihigh"
  keywords. Previously only the lightcurve was filtered and the images
  produced by nupipeline/nuproducts were always "full band" images and
  the user was required to use to XSELECT or "extractor" to produced
  energy-band images.  This has been changed for simplicity.

* nulccorr:

  Some lightcurve analysis suites (e.g. lcurve) read the "DEADAPP"
  keyword to determine whether or not the deadtime correction has been
  applied. Previously, the "DEADAPP" keyword had not been set, which
  could result in livetime corrections being applied twice (once in
  the bin-by-bin by nulccorr and then the average livetime correction
  across the lightcurve by lcurve or other XRONOS FTOOLs).  DEADAPP is
  now correctly set if nulccorr has been called on a lightcurve and
  livetime corrections have been applied.

* nuexpomap:

  The "PIXBIN and "PERCENT" option keywords have been added to the
  header of the exposure maps to improve self-documentation.

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                                     SWIFT
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XRTDAS_v292:

Major Changes to tasks:

* xrttam      - Added check of the 'ATTFLAG' keyword of the input attitude file.
* xrtfilter   - Added check of the 'ATTFLAG' keyword of the input attitude file.
* xrttdrss2   - Added check of the 'ATTFLAG' keyword of the input attitude file.
* xrtpccorr   - Added check of the 'ATTFLAG' keyword of the input attitude file.
* xrthkproc   - Added check of the 'ATTFLAG' keyword of the input attitude file.
* xrtlccorr   - Added check of the 'ATTFLAG' keyword of the input attitude file.
* xrtexpomap  - Added check of the 'ATTFLAG' keyword of the input attitude file.
* xrttimetag  - Added check of the 'ATTFLAG' keyword of the input attitude file.
* xrtpipeline - Added check of the 'ATTFLAG' keyword of the input attitude file.
              - Use of the "pat" attitude file by default for data in SETTLING
                mode.

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby