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This Legacy journal article was published in Volume 6, August 1995, and has not been updated since publication. Please use the search facility above to find regularly-updated information about this topic elsewhere on the HEASARC site.

Foreword

N. E. White

HEASARC


The high quality CCD spectra obtained by ASCA (see the front cover) have revealed limitations in the plasma code models, that were not important for the previous generation of lower resolution X-ray spectrometers. This issue of Legacy contains two articles on this issue. The first is a report on a plasma codes workshop that was held at the Napa Valley meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the AAS held last November and chaired by Wilt Sanders. At this workshop the various groups working on plasma codes discussed with the observers the various problems in modeling the data and a summary is given here of the issues raised and discussed. A second article by Rolf Mewe, Jella Kaastra and Duane Liedhal report on the updates to the "meka" code that takes better account of the finer details of the atomic physics. This revised code called "mekal" is now available in the latest version of XSPEC v9.0 and the Utrecht spectral fitting package SPEX (also described here).

All the raw EXOSAT data is now available at the HEASARC, along with the ESA/ESTEC interactive analysis system. This issue contains two articles that describe the EXOSAT archive at the HEASARC and how to use it. The first HEASARC-produced EXOSAT CD-ROM is now available containing all the images from the mission in FITS and GIF format. This CD along with the latest volume of ROSAT images were distributed at the past summer and winter AAS meetings. They can be obtained upon request to the HEASARC. The data restoration effort continues at a good pace and a progress report is given.


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