National Aeronautics and Space Administration

****************************************************************************
                       RELEASE NOTES FOR HEASOFT 6.0.5
                              April 26, 2006
******************************************************************************

The HEASoft 6.0.5 release is primarily driven by the release of the Swift
software version 2.4, but also includes updates to several tasks in the
attitude subpackage and to the FTOOLS and XANADU utilities 'xselect',
'extractor', 'efold' and 'fv', which have been revised to mirror the
current development versions in use at the HEASARC. This release also
includes CFITSIO v3.006.

As before, configuration-related changes thoughout the package means that
users who already have HEASoft v6.0X 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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                                ATTITUDE
******************************************************************************


attjumpcorr [NEW TASK]- 
   Correct Swift attitude for jumps

tristarid -
   Reworked match disambiguation
 
   Assorted refinements to catalog loading


******************************************************************************
                                 CFITSIO
******************************************************************************

Version 3.006 - 20 February 2006  -(first full release of v3)

  - enhanced the 'col' extended filename syntax to support keyword name
    expressions like
       [col error=sqrt(rate); #TUNIT# = 'counts/s'],
    in which the trailing '#' will be replaced by the column number
    of the most recently referenced column.

  - fixed bug in the parse_data iterator work function that caused it
    to fail to return a value of -1 in cases where only a selected
    set of rows were to be processed. (affected Fv)

  - added code to fitsio.h and cfortran.h to typedef LONGLONG to
    the appropriate 8-byte integer data type.  Most compilers now
    support the 'long long' data type, but older MS Visual C++
    compilers used '__int64' instead.

  - made several small changes based on testing by Martin Reinecke:
    o in  eval.y, change 'int undef' to 'long undef'
    o in getcold.c and getcole.c, fixed a couple format conversion
      specifiers when displaying the value of long long variables.
    o in fitsio.h, modified the definition of USE_LL_SUFFIX in the
      case of Athon64 machines.
    o in fitsio2.h,  defined BYTESWAPPED in the case of SGI machines.
    o in group.c, added 'include unistd.h' to get rid of compiler warning.


*****************************************************************************
                                  fv 
******************************************************************************

Version 4.3 April 2006

New features/Bug fixes since V4.2 include:

    * Add capability to invoke future HERA modules.
    * Add capablity to calculate Flux on region.
    * Add capability to handle "Physical" attribute in region file.
    * Add capability to center (and resize) of ROI (region of interest) when
    * the image is zoomed.
    * Add capability to allow parameters editor to stay until user decided to
    * cancel.
    * Fix running FTOOLS tools not copying physical par file problem.
    * Fix sorting Fits table but displaying wrong slice image problem.
    * Fix rotation of coordinates results in wrong region specification
    * problem.
    * Fix plotting of selected rows from FITS table problem.
    * Fix ploygon region handle placement and dragging mechanisms problem.


******************************************************************************
                                  HEASARC
******************************************************************************

 extractor v4.62 -

   Fixed bug that causes light curves from Swift UVOT data to have a TSTART
   keyword of zero and hence incorrect TELAPSE keyword.

 xselect v2.3 -

   Corrected failure to propagate MJDREFI/F everywhere it was required which
   led to incorrect label at the top of lightcurve plots.

   Fix so that FILTER TIME FILE works for files whose EXTNAME is either GTI
   or STDGTI. Previous version worked for GTI only, which gave an error when
   using output from maketime.

   Fixed so looks for the first GTI extension instead of just assuming it
   is the first extension when doing a filter time file.

   Fix for bug under Linux in the plot mkf command. The xparm string was being
   overwritten leading to junk being passed to plt as the label for the X axis.


******************************************************************************
                                  SWIFT
******************************************************************************

Swift software v 2.4:

----------------------
BAT specific tools
----------------------

batbinevt -
   BUG FIX regarding the calculation of energy bins; the *top-most*
   bin only would miss a 0.1 keV slice of the data

   Improved checking for overlapping energy bins

   Checking if input is a DPH of cleaned RESIDUALs (prevents erroneous
   statistical uncertainties from being calculated)
 
   Work around a BUG in XSPEC which transforms small error bars into
   big (occurs when using a PREDICTED map)

   Remove some Chandra Data Model keywords that become erroneous after
   binning

batcelldetect -
   BUG FIX when 'nadjpix' > 1; should only affect the chi-square values
   reported

   New parameters 'inbkgmap' and 'inbkgvarmap' which allow pre-computed
   background information (saves computational time)

   New parameter 'carryover' which controls whether new sources are
   carried over to subsequent images in a multi-image analysis

   New PSF type: "TRUNCONE" for azimuthally averaged images
   Optimized for speed in the PSF-fitting stage

   Check for tangent-plane coordinate system in images is more
   complete now

batdrmgen -
  Improved error checking

baterebin -
   New parameter 'outmap' for optional output detmask, with values
   indicating various potential criteria for masking detectors

   New parameters 'lowecare' and 'highecare' that determine the energy
   range checked for two potential exclusion criteria

batmaskwtevt -
   New parameter 'pcodethresh' which allows far off-axis sources to be
   removed (instead of having very noisy points)

batoccultgti -
   Revise the parameter handling so that the use does not need to 
   know about, or delete, the required scratch files unless they want to
 
   Correct behavior for the region file coordinate system designation

   Add exception handling routines

batoccultmap -
   Now uses the new version of WCSLIB

batphasyserr -
   The task now adds some HISTORY information

   Add exception handling routines

battblocks -
   Internal code clean-up

batupdatephakw -
   The task now adds some HISTORY information

   Add exception handling routines

Tasks batevt2dpi, batgse2dpi, batgse2dph, and batmasktagpha are
considered obsolete, and/or not for end users.
For more information on BAT analysis issues see the BAT Digest Page at:
  http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/swift/analysis/bat_digest.html

--------------------
UVOT specific tool
--------------------

uvotaspcorr [NEW TASK]- 
   Simplify finding/applying aspect corrections to UVOT sky images.

uvotexpcorr [NEW TASK]- 
   Check and/or correct the EXPOSURE keyword in UVOT images.

uvotdetect -
   Several updates to SExtractor parameters including new output columns based 
   on aperture photometry RATE_APER[12]*
  
   Corrected background mean and sigma estimates and how they are by SExtractor
  
   Fixed RATE_ERRs when an exposure map is provided

uvotexpmap -
   Updated how RAW to SKY transform is determined to match swiftxform

uvotimage -
   Update time keywords in primary output HDU

uvotimgrism -
   Changed units of sourcex/y to input image pixels

   More verbose description of positions in various coordinate systems

   Generate a region file showing important locations in the input image

   ZERODET[XY] now give physical pixels instead of input image pixels

uvotimsum -
   Modified exclude parameter to support excluding HDUs on the basis of
   the presence/value of the ASPCORR keyword

   By default, HDUs without ASPCORR keyword are excluded from sum

uvotmag -
   Added parameters for frame time, source aperture and whether dead time
   correction has already been performed

   Write saturated column

uvotmaghist -
   Added frametime parameter

uvotskyfield -
   Added parameter to scale output image

uvotsource -
   Added output in mJy
   Changed default value of output parameter to ALL

--------------------
XRT specific tool
--------------------

xrttdrss2 [NEW TASK] - 
   Process new XRT TDRSS messages (XRT telemetry patches f and g support)

xrttdrss - 
   Added messages to display the beginning and the end time of the script execution.

   Use of IMPOSERR HDU instead of TDPOSERR to calculate position error.

xrtinstrmap -
   Implemented WT handling.

   Added OBS_MODE, DATAMODE, OBS_ID and XRTNFRAME keywords in output file.
  
   Changed output images datatype to handle different duration of the WT frame.

xrtexpomap - 
   Implemented the generation of the exposure map for WT mode

   Gzipped output temporary files if cleanup=no.

   Added obsmode, datamode and windowed in the output filename root.

   Used TCRVALn instead of RA_PNT and DEC_PNT for 'swiftxform' call.

xrtmkarf - 
   Implemented ARF correction using  exposure maps for WT mode.

xrtflagpix - 
   Modified to handle TDRSS Photon Counting format.

xrttimetag -
   Added new input parameter 'colfile' to correct telemetered RAWX and 
   add and fill RAWXTL column if needed.

xrtwtcorr -
   Added 'colfile' input parameter.

   Added check on 'XRAWXCOR' keyword and shift the BiasRow RAWX if the keyword is set to TRUE.

xrtfilter -
   Added parameter 'gtiexpr' to generate GTIs based on the attitude for mkf screening.

xrtpipeline - 
   Changes to support Build 18

xrtproducts - 
   Added handling of WT exposure maps.

(libswxrt) -
   Modified maximum number of columns supported in FITS Bintable to handle new header
   fits file format

--------------
Swift/General
--------------
barycorr -
   Handles gaps in orbit files and ignores 'tolerance' parameter (Swift only)

   Clarified documention: ra/dec parameters may only be expressed in decimal degrees

******************************************************************************
                                  XRONOS
******************************************************************************

 efold - 
    Bug Fix in the normalization calculation when multiple intervals are requested.

Web page maintained by: Bryan K. Irby