A historical note

This file format supercedes the non-FITS format used in XSPEC prior to v8.6. This old format was a direct-access binary file and was not easily internally documented or transported across disparate systems. XSPEC used a different direct-access binary file format to store the model spectra tables used in the raymond model and this suffered from the same problems.

The new FITS file format described here and is used both for the table models and for the raymond model. This has the spinoff that a file created for the raymond model can be read as a table model thus providing greater flexibility for users wanting to run the raymond model using a different grid of temperatures or different energy bins.

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Last modified: Monday, 18-Oct-2021 15:22:13 EDT