ROSAT Status Report #96:
June 27 1994
HINTS & POINTERS for PROS Users
Release Notes for SAO/PROS Patch 2.3.1 -- June 1994
Contents
- Setting-up to to use the XRAY Package
- New Tasks
- Major Changes to Existing Tasks
- PROS Packages and Tasks
- Test Data Files
- Calibration Data Files
- The PROS Users Guide
- Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
Setting up to use the XRAY package
Required packages:
- IRAF V2.10.1 or higher
- from (iraf.noao.edu -or- 140.252.1.1)
- TABLES 1.3.1
- from (stsci.edu -or- 130.167.1.2)
- PROS 2.3
- from (sao-ftp.harvard.edu -or- 128.103.42.3)
optional packages:
- EUV
- from (cea-ftp.cea.berkeley.edu -or- 128.32.154.12)
Note: Users must re-run the mkiraf task and answer 'yes' to the 're-initialize uparm?' option before running the new version.
New TASKS in this release (PROS 2.3.1)
- QPCALC (xproto) -
- This task runs on QPOES and is based on the
TCALC task in iraf.tables. It evaluates an arbitrary expression
that includes event-attribute names, constants, and operators, and
creates a specified event-attribute in the QPOE --- or overwrites
an existing event-attribute if the specified name already exists.
Variables in the expression are event-attribute names in either case.
- HXFLUX (xspectral) -
- New task to compute the flux of a ROSAT HRI
observation from an input QPOE. It runs qpspec, fit,
and xflux in a macro task.
- ECD2PROS (xdataio.eincdrom) -
- This task will retrieve Einstein data
from any of the CD-ROM archives (including the new IPC unscreened
archive). This task replaces the now-obsolete tasks qp_get
and fits_get.
- EFITS2QP (xdataio) -
New task to convert any Einstein FITS file
(containing BINTABLE extensions) to an RDF IRAF/PROS QPOE file.
- ECDINFO (xdataio.eincdrom) -
- This task retrieves information about a
particular Einstein observation and displays the observation title,
livetime, field center, etc.
- EINDATADEMO (xdataio.eincdrom) -
- Demo task for Einstein screened and unscreened data. Optional Einstein distributed data files installation are required.
Major modifications to existing TASKS in this release (PROS 2.3.1)
- RARC2PROS, RFITS2PROS, UPQPOERDF (xdataio) -
- These tasks have been updated
to run QPGAPMAP when the input data are ROSAT/HRI. The detector
coordinates (DETX/DETY) are computed by applying the gapmap to the
Raw coordinates (RAWX/Y) and they are added to the event-list.
- QPSPEC (xspectral) -
- This task was updated to eliminate any restrictions
on the geometry of source regions. Removed the 'extended' task
parameter. Updated the region descriptor processing to provide prompt
feedback about syntactic or semantic errors in region descriptors
provided to qpspec.
- Replaced particle_bkgd.tab to match Plucinsky et al paper, updated ros_pi_offar.ieee to maintain consistency with PROSCON v 2.3. Added bal26.0tab.
- Replaced particle_bkgd.tab to match Plucinsky et al paper, updated ros_pi_offar.ieee to maintain consistency with PROSCON v 2.3. Added bal26.0tab.
- QPLINTRAN (ximages) -
- This task was updated to allow re-dimensioning and
re-blocking when making QPOE-> QPOE conversions (already implemented
in QPOE -> IMAGE conversions)
- QPGAPMAP (xdataio) -
- This task was updated to write the recentered
optical axis coordinates in the output QPOE header.
- APPLY_BARY (xtiming.timcor) -
- An intermittent crash error was fixed,
RA/DEC no longer read from command line (read from correction table
header), rationalized warning messages and time units.
- Replaced scc_to_utc table with latest version from MPE.
- Replaced scc_to_utc table with latest version from MPE.
- IMCONTOUR/TVIMCONTOUR (xplot) -
- Fixed source display error. Sometimes a source was missing when plotting an ascii source list. Now all sources are displayed.
PROS Packages and Tasks
The xray package contains the following sub-packages and tasks Note that:- * denotes a new task,
- + major modifications made to a task,
- $ task has been given a new name,
- - task has been moved from one package to another):
- + major modifications made to a task,
package tasks description --------- ------------ ------------------------------------------ xdataio * efits2qp convert Einstein FITS event list to qpoe + fits2qp fixed alignment problem for ASCA SIS data fixed memory problems for IRIX port + rfits2pros added upqpoerdf + rarc2pros added upqpoerdf + qp2fits updated to write new rdf keywords tlmin/tlmax + upqpoerdf added call to qpgapmap when ROSAT/HRI data - qpgapmap added update to recenter optical axis position in the output qpoe header eincdrom * ecd2pros reads data from eincdroms data to disk * ecdinfo retrieves info on an Einstein observation * eindatademo demo of Einstein screened and unscreened data xspatial detect + lbmap updated soft/hard/broad limit of pha xtiming + fft fixed totcnts to avoid accumulated round-off errors timcor + apply_bary updated screen display, read ra/dec from input table headers, debugged intermittent segv error. xspectral * hxflux computes the flux from a ROSAT/HRI QPOE + qpspec offaxis angle update, accept ASCA data, eliminated restrictions on source regions, added prompt feedback to regions errors xplot + imcontour/ tvimcontour fixed source display when ascii input + tabplot updated for compatibility with TABLES 1.3.1 ximages + qplintran added 2 new parameters (xdim,ydim) to allow specifying the output QPOE dimension xproto * qpcalc qpoe calculator xlocal (tasks supported locally, i.e., at SAO) + mpc.mpcspec updated to write RDF-style spectral tables --------- ------------ ------------------------------------------
Test Data Files
The test data files in xdata$ are upgraded to RDF format with the task UPQPOERDF as part of this installation.
Calibration Data Files
The file ros_pi_offar.ieee in the data directory xspectraldata, used by QPSPEC, has been modified to replace zero values of effective area in the first seven pi channels with ones. The change was necessitated by modifications in PROSCON v. 2.3, which now requires 256-channel spectra as input.Changed comments and table values in xspectraldata$particle_bkgd.tab to match the final published version of the Plucinsky et al paper. This file had been based on a preprint; both variable names and values had changed in the final paper.
The most recent scc_to_utc.tab file from MPE is included.
Added the Einstein IPC response matrix for the BAL value of 26.0, bal26.0tab, used by xspectral.fit.
PROS User's Guide (PUG)
The PROS USERS GUIDE has been revised from the June '93 (PROS vs 2.2) edition. It now corresponds to the current PROS release, 2.3.1 and will be available as an html version accessible via xmosaic as well as the conventional ftp latex and postscript editions. A forthcoming H&P will provide the details.
Some answers to related IRAF/PROS Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
- Q: Now that PROS has been updated to support RDF, are my existing QPOE files compatible?
- A: PROS supports data in both old (REV0) and new (RDF) format,
but will always write files in RDF. The PROS ROSAT FITS readers (rfits2pros,
rarc2pros) will do any required conversions automatically. However, any
EXISTING PROS QPOE files (on disk pre PROS2.3 - dec93), must be converted
manually by the user, with the task UPQPOERDF.
- > xdataio
- >upqpoerdf
- > xdataio
- Q: How can I verify old results before moving to the new poison error calculations in PROS?
- A: Poisson error approximations are the default in PROS 2.3
(Dec 93).
Some user's may want to run with Gaussian errors to verify old results
before moving to the new default. The following procedure will change
the QPOE header keyword POISSERR from T (true for POISSON errors) to
F (false for GAUSSIAN errors):
- verify current value
> imhead rh110267.qp long+ | match POISSERR POISSERR= T
- change T to F (Note the value is boolean, so DO NOT use quotes)
> qphedit rh110267.qp POISSERR F rh110267.qp,POISSERR (T -> F): y rh110267.qp,POISSERR: T -> F continue ? (yes): rh110267.qp updated
- verify update
>imhead rh110267.qp long+ | match POISSERR POISSERR= F
- change T to F (Note the value is boolean, so DO NOT use quotes)
- Also, see help explain_errors for a description of error calculations.
- verify current value
- Q: The syntax used to specify detector coordinates is cumbersome, is there a better method?
- A:
IRAF 'key' syntax has been updated to use real event-attribute names:
- New syntax: key=(detx,dety)
- Old syntax: key=(s16,s18) ... obscure and cumbersome
i.e. the following example will display a map using detector coords
- > xdisplay foo.qp[key=(detx,dety)]
- New syntax: key=(detx,dety)
- Q:How can I access recent PROS documents?
- A: In the IRAF/XRAY package:
- Type help revisions in XRAY to display these notes.
- Type 'help pros' for an overview of PROS help documents.
- Type help revisions in XRAY to display these notes.
ABOUT HINTS & POINTERS
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