National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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                         RELEASE NOTES FOR HEASOFT 6.19
                                    May 11, 2016
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The HEASoft 6.19 release is primarily driven by updates to the NuSTAR
software and the first public release of analysis software for the Hitomi
mission, but also includes updates to other packages which have been
revised to mirror the current development versions in use at the HEASARC.

As before, configuration-related changes thoughout the package means that
users who already have HEASoft v6.x.x installed will need to completely
replace their software installation; there is no clean way to simply
overlay this new release or to update an existing installation.

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                                    CFITSIO
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HEACORE:

- CFITSIO: Version 3.39:

  - Added new routines suggested by Eric Mandel (CFA):

    1) ffhisto3 is similar to ffhisto2, except that it does not close
       the original file.
    2) fits_open_extlist is similar to fits_open_data except that it
       opens the FITS file and then moves to the first extension in
       the user-input list of 'good' extensions.

  - In ffpsvc and ffprec, it is necessary to treat CONTINUE, COMMENT,
    HISTORY, and blank name keywords as a special case which must be
    treated differently from other keywords because they have no value
    field and, by definition, have keyword names that are strictly
    limited in length.
    
  - Added the Fortran wrapper routines for the 2 new string keyword
    reading routines (FTGSKY and FTGKSL), and documented all the
    routines in the FITSIO and CFITSIO users guides.

  - In ffinttyp, added explicit initialization of the input 'negative' 
    argument to 0.

  - Added new routine to return the length of the keyword value string:

        fits_get_key_strlen / ffgksl

    This is primarily intended for use with string keywords that use
    the CONTINUE convention to continue the value over multiple header
    records, but this routine can be used to get the length of the
    value string for any type keyword.

  - Added new routine to read string-valued keywords:

         fits_read_string_key / ffgsky

    This routine supports normal string keywords as well as long string
    keywords that use the CONTINUE convention. In many cases this routine
    may be more convenient to use then the older fits_read_key_longstr
    routine.

  - Changed the prototype of fits_register_driver in fitsio2.h so that
    the pointer definition argument does not have the same name as the
    pointer itself (to work around a bug in the pgcc compiler).
    
  - Added the missing FTDTDM fortran wrapper definition to f77_wrap3.c.
  
  - Modified Makefile.in and configure.in to add LDFLAGS_BIN for task
    linker flags, which will be the same as LDFLAGS except on newer
    Mac OS X where an rpath flag is added.

  - Modified Makefile.in to add a new "make utils" command which will
    build fpack, funpack, cookbook, fitscopy, imcopy, smem, speed, and
    testprog.  These programs will be installed into $prfix/bin.

  - Fixed a bug when attempting to modify the values in a variable-
    length bit ("X") column in a binary table.

  - Reinstated the ability to write HIERARCH keywords that contain
    characters that would not be allowed in a normal 8-character
    keyword name, which had been disabled in the previous release.

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                                    FUTILS
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- fverify:

  Fixed one-line summary in batch (file list) mode.  fverify was
  erroneously reporting one-line summary success for files which
  actually should have failed.

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                                    HEASARC
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- extractor:

  Read in the DETNAM keyword from the input event files and include
  in the keywords written out.

  Added copying of keywords from the EVENTS extension in the input
  file into the SPECTRUM extension of the output file.  Remove
  duplicate TELESCOP etc keywords.

  Fixed bug when writing an event file from multiple input event
  files using the "slow" method when there are vector columns.

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                                    HEATOOLS
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- ftverify:

  Fixed one-line summary in batch (file list) mode.  ftverify was
  erroneously reporting one-line summary success for files which
  actually should have failed.

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                                    XIMAGE
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- Fixed memory fault that occurred when remapping images with a wide
  pixel FOV (on the order of 864x864 pixels) and a dense photon
  distribution (i.e. something such as a 1536x1536 image with a rebin
  scale of 16).

- ximage.mdb: Added instrument definition for Hitomi.

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                                    XSELECT
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- Improved diagnostic output and changed to handle tabs in
  xselect.mdb.  Modified so that select chip will work for any
  mission and instrument which has ccol set in the xselect.mdb.
  Only in the case of Chandra and XMM will it check for the
  chip(s) selected to be within the valid range.  Added HITOMI
  entries to xselect.mdb.

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                                     XSPEC
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HEASoft 6.19 includes Xspec v12.9.0n (patch level "n"):

 http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xanadu/xspec/issues/issues.html

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                                     XSTAR
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Version 2.31 - updates since v221bn26 (HEASOFT 6.18) include:

An error affecting the use of the optical depths and escape
probabilities in the continuum escape from  2-sided models was fixed.

An error in the atomic data (statistical weights) for the upper
levels of  N VI n=1-2 lines was fixed.

Change to pprint to make line labels for inward and outward
emission consistent.

Updates to version 2.3 which fix the compton heating error found
in 10/2015.

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                                    NUSTAR
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- Updates for NuSTARDAS 1.6.0:

  Please note that this version requires NuSTAR CALDB dated 2016
  05/02 or newer and will not work with older versions of the CALDB.

  Major changes introduced in this version:

  nusplitsc (NEW TASK):

  When the primary star tracker (also known as a camera head unit, or
  CHU) is blinded by the Earth limb or glint from the Sun the data is
  recorded in 'Mode 06' by the pipeline. In this mode the pipeline
  uses the spacecraft start rackers (CHUs 1, 2, and 3) to determine
  the sky position of each count. This sky position can be subtly
  different when different combinations of star trackers are guiding
  the observatory pointing, resulting in blurring of the output image.

  nusplitsc allows the user to generate separate independent output
  files for each CHU combination, each of which should have reduced
  blurring and higher fidelity. We note that the absolute position of
  these images may still be different than the Mode 01 data set and do
  not recommend using RA/DEC coordinates when extracting produces in
  these modes without first inspecting the images.

  See the Observatory Guide as well as Walton et al. (2016) and
  Grefenstette et al. (2016) for more details.

- nucalcsaa: The SOC has optimized new algorithms to automatically
  generate GTIs that exclude regions of the orbit that produce
  enhanced background counts in the detector.  See the Observatory
  Guide for a full description of these new modes and their effects.

- nupipeline: New options to accomodate the nusplitsc and nucalcsaa
  tasks. Added optional call to the new 'nusplitsc' module (parameter
  'runsplitsc', set to 'no' by default) and modified the call to
  'nucalcsaa' from nupipeline.

- nuflagbad: Minor bug fix to exclude hot pixels in the output
  badpixel file (nu*_bp.fits) in case of reprocessed files;

- nuscreen: Addition of a new keyword (OBSMODE) storing the NuSTAR
  observing mode to the output cleaned event files;

- nufilter: Addition of the keywords MJDREFI and MJDREFF in the
  output filter (nu*.mkf) file;

- nucoord: Value update of the RA_NOM and DEC_NOM keywords in the
  +0 and +6 extension of unfiltered event files.

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                                     SWIFT
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UVOT:

- uvotcentroid: Allow sexigesimal position in region file. Correct
  typo in variable name (was mixing ccord (wrong) and coord.

- uvotproduct: Modified to use swifttime when converting between MET
  and UTC and updated labels to reflect that.

- uvotscreen: Update GTI and WINDOW extensions to reflect screening.

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby