Rosat status report 74

[REQUEST@rosat.gsfc.nasa.gov]

		ROSAT Status Report # 74
                   December 9th 1993


		   NEW FTOOLS RELEASE


As noted in ROSAT Status Report # 65, FTOOLS are a collection of utility
programs to create/modify or examine data files in the FITS format. FTOOLS
form the basis of the ASCA analysis system, but there are a large number of 
general FITS tools which are useful for the analysis of ROSAT data, along 
with an increasing number of ROSAT-specific tasks. The FTOOLS tasks run 
either standalone on all common platforms, and/or can be installed as 
an IRAF package.

The FTOOLS software is currently divided into the following areas: 
 
General Purpose Utilities			The 'futils' sub-package
Parameter file manipulation tasks		
High Energy Astrophysics specific tasks		The 'heasarc' sub-package
Calibration specific tasks			The 'caltools' sub-package
XTE specific tasks				The 'xte' sub-package

The "caltools" area includes several useful ROSAT tasks (in addition to
ASCA and other tasks) some of these are new to version 2.7 (new tasks 
applicable to ROSAT are marked *): 

       dmprmf - Displays an RMF (redist matrix) file in user-friendly way
      marfrmf - Multiplies an ancillary response file by a redist matrix
*    pspcexpm - Creates an exposure map for a ROSAT PSPC observation
     pspcrpsf - Rebins RPSF data, and produces theoretical ROSAT PSPC RPSF
       quzcif - Interogates local Caldb for location of a dataset
*     rsp2rmf - Converts SF format response matrices to OGIP FITS format
      rpsfqdp - Converts OGIP format radial profile file to ASCII QDP
       rbnrmf - Physically compresses a RMF file
      st2rpsf - Reads STWFITS file and writes an OGIP RPSF file
*     stw2pha - Converts PHA file produced by STWFITS to OGIP FITS format

   Other ROSAT related FTOOLS include:

    grppha - Manipulates OGIP standard PHA FITS file (groups data)
  maketime - Calculate time intervals (GTIs) from housekeeping (HK) data
   fselect - Create a new table from selected rows of a table
    sf2pha - Converts SF format (old XSPEC) PHA file to OGIP FITS format     
    fltime - Filter an event list within given time intervals (GTIs)
    fburst - Remove bursts of events (afterpulses) from time ordered event list
     fplot - Plot columns in a FITS file using QDP/PLT package ***


Notes: 
-----
1)  stw2pha can be used in place of proscon. First dump the iraf/pros
    _obs.tab file to IRAF FITS using STSDAS.FITSIO.STWFITS, then convert  
    to the OGIP standard FITS using stw2pha. This FITS file can then be 
    read into xspec. This task does not make a response matrix. For the 
    on_axis case please use the FITS matrix from legacy.gsfc 

    /caldb/data/rosat/pspc/cpf/pspcb_93jan12.rmf  or pspcb_92mar11.rmf (etc)

    A software tool will soon be available to make a "correction file" for the 
    off-axis case. 


2)  pspcexpm creates the band-correct exposure map for a ROSAT PSPC
    pointed observation. (The task is essentially an  FTOOLized  version
    of  Steve  Snowden's  CAST_EXP code). Detector maps created from the
    ROSAT All-Sky Survey data are required.  The  output  is  a  512x512
    FITS  image  of  the whole PSPC field of view (with pixels 16 arcsec
    per side) of the  effective  exposure  time  (in  seconds)  at  that
    position.  The  effects  of  vignetting (for a spectrum equal to the
    mean spectrum of the X-ray background in the PSPC band) and  spatial
    variations  in  the efficiency of the detector are included (via the
    detector maps), along with detector deadtime effects (this code).

    The program follows the suggestions of Snowden et al. (1992,  ApJ,
    393  819)  and  Plucinsky  et  al.  (1993, ApJ, in press) to exclude
    regions of the PSPC near the edges of the PSPC  which  are  strongly
    affected  by the particle background, the "bright line" regions. The
    program also assumes that a selection has been done on the  data  to
    exclude  all  events  which  follow  within 0.35 ms of a "precursor"
    event. This excludes some  of  the  low  pulse-height  "after-Pulse"
    signal which affects data collected after 1992 May.

    In  brief,  the  attitude  and  GTI  files are used to construct a
    matrix of the time the instrument spent at  each  pointing  position
    (X,Y  relative  to  the  nominal  pointing  position  defined by the
    optical axis) and roll angle.  (The X,Y are  in  units  of  14.94733
    arc  seconds  for historical reasons, the ROLL steps are in units of
    0.2076 degrees.) The event-rates file is then used to calculate  the
    live-time  fraction  at each of these positions.  Finally the output
    exposure map is constructed by  moving  the  detector  map  to  each
    off-axis  position,  rotated  to  each  roll  angle,  and adding the
    detector map with the appropriate weighting factor to  the  exposure
    map under construction.

    WARNINGS ON USAGE

    This is a BETA test version of the code.

    A  number  of  OGIP-required  FITS keywords are not yet written to
    the o/p exposure map. These will be added in the near future.



FTOOLS Announcement of Release
------------------------------ 

The FTOOLS release version 2.7 is now ready and available. You can find  
compressed tar files in the /software/ftools/release/ directory of the  
anonymous FTP account on legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov.  These files are:

-rw-r--r--  61521 Dec  7 19:17 Develop.v2.7.ps.Z
-rw-r--r--  36444 Dec  7 19:17 Install.v2.7.ps.Z
-rw-r--r--  52119 Dec  7 19:17 Miniusers.v2.7.ps.Z
-rw-r--r--  234637 Dec  7 19:17 Users.v2.7.ps.Z
-rw-r--r--  6762731 Dec  7 20:29 ftools.dec.v2.7.tar.Z
-rw-r--r--  6976935 Dec  7 20:31 ftools.osf.v2.7.tar.Z
-rw-r--r--  6167288 Dec  7 20:32 ftools.sun.v2.7.tar.Z
-rw-r--r--  7003349 Dec  7 20:33 ftools.vms.v2.7.tar.Z

This release of FTOOLS contains several significant differences from the
previous releases, in addition to the usual enhancements and bug fixes:

o twelve new tasks are included:  

    in caltools package: marfrmf,pspcexpm,stw2pha
    in the heasarc package: ascalin,nsparf,sf2pha,timeconv,cleansis
    in new xte package: sacurve,securve,saspec,sespec

o 4 tasks have been removed from the heasarc package and replaced by 

  ascalin:
                gislin, sislin, coord, fixedasp

o the cktimeorder task was renamed cktime

o a new mkftools script has been written having more options

o the VMS version now builds all tasks, rather than including some executables.
In addition, the XPI command interpretter is built instead of being included
as an object library.

o The high energy astrophysics data analysis program XSELECT is now built on
all platforms.  This program is not yet available under VMS.  This version of
FTOOLS and XSELECT is compatible with FRFREAD version 3.004.

o the whole of the ISAS atFunctions library is included to support some of the
ASCA specific tasks.  The source code is slightly modified from the original
so that it will run on all platforms.