Important:

No More Raw Files

The ASCA processing team no longer distributes the raw science files (e.g. ft960608_0143_0135G201770M.fits). All the useful information from these files is contained in the unfiltered event files (e.g. ad84009000g300170h.unf) located in the unscreened directory. Eliminating the raw files decreases the number of files and megabytes in your dataset. We hope this makes it easier to work with your data.

Reducing your Data

In order to use the unfiltered event files in ascascreen you must:

run ascascreen -e unf
and choose the unscreened directory as your data directory.

If you prefer to run xselect manually, set the data directory to the unscreened directory with the command: set datadir [unscreened directory path] and then load the unfiltered files individually with the command: read events [filename].

Alternatively, you can read all .unf files for a given instrument with the command make obscat ASCA_s0_lststr="*s0*.unf" where s0 should be replaced with s0, s1, g2, or g3 depending on the instrument you want.

VMS Issues

VMS users may have trouble reading this tape. If this is the case, please contact the processing team at ascaproc@ssvs.gsfc.nasa.gov.

Other Information