A2RTRAW - HEAO 1 A2 Raw Rates

Overview

The A2 experiment was flown on the HEAO-1 satellite, between August, 1977 until January 1979. The experiment consisted of six multi-layer multi-anode collimated gas proportional counters. These were two LEDs (Low Energy Detectors), a MED (Medium Energy Detector), and three HEDs (High Energy Detectors). The first 6-months of mission were dedicated to an all-sky scan after which a pointing phase started. This database accesses the raw rate data obtained from the A2 MED (small and large field of view, FOV) and HEDs (1,2 and 3 small and large filed of view) detectors during the scanning and pointed phase.

Note: This database does not contain coordinates. Since the satellite was mostly scanning, the XRATE database, from which the FITS files are generated, was organized in time.

Data Products

The raw rate FITS files were created from the XRATE database which contains the rates for the MED and HED data only. Each FITS file consists of only one extension containing housekeeping parameters and data. Data from the HED detectors 1, 2, and 3 large and small FOV are all included in a file. A separate file contains the MED (large and small FOV) data. Each FITS file contains up to twelve hours of data and represents a single tape file from the original XRATES database. For each 12 hours per instrument (HED or MED) two sets of files are available with integration time of 5.12 and 1.28 seconds.

Parameters

Filename
Root of the filename containing the raw data. The naming convention for the A2 raw rate datafile is the following: a2_xrateXXXXIIII_KKK.raw where XXXX is a sequential number ranging from 0001 to 1009, IIII identifies the instrument (either med or hed), KKK is the integration time either 128 or 512 sec.

Int_Time
Data integration time. The values are 1.28 and 5.12 seconds.

Detector
Detector name. The values are MED and HED. The HED file include data for the HED1, HED2,HED3 detectors.

Start_Date
Date and Time of first data record, character string representation: "DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS".

Stop_Date
Date and Time of last data record, character string representation: "DD/MM/YY HH:MM:SS".

Start_Time
Date and Time of first data record.

Stop_Time
Date and Time of last data record.

Contact Person

Questions regarding the A2RTRAW database table can be addressed to the HEASARC Help Desk.

Page Author: Browse Software Development Team
Last Modified: Monday, 16-Sep-2024 17:23:55 EDT