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GSFC XMM-Newton GOF Status Report #058: Important Updates

Useful WWW Sites:

    GOF - US Guest Observer Facility at GSFC (http://xmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/)
    SOC - ESA Science Operations Center at VILSPA, Spain
          (http://xmm.vilspa.esa.es/)  
    XSA - XMM-Newton Science Archive at the SOC 
          (http://xmm.vilspa.esa.es/external/xmm_data_acc/xsa/index.shtml)
    CXC - Chandra X-ray Center at SAO (http://cxc.harvard.edu/)

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 1) Senior Review results.

 2) XMM-Newton calibrations are in good shape.

 3) The XMM-Newton archive is open and GO data are flowing.

 4) SAS V5.3.3 release continues major improvements.

 5) Revised version of the ABC Guide (v1.2) is ready.

 6) RGS extended source analysis software available.

 7) New HEASARC Browse data table XMMMASTER.

 8) Budget AO for successful US AO-2 GOs imminent.

 9) SAS Workshop to be held at GSFC.

10) Call for comments/concerns to be presented to the European Users Group.

11) GO feedback.

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 1) Senior Review results.

 The US XMM-Newton project did very well in the 2002 Senior Review
 process, and the results are available at:
 http://spacescience.nasa.gov/admin/divisions/sz/SenRev02.pdf
 This is the biyearly exercise where NASA reviews ongoing projects for 
 continued support.  The GOF and instrument teams will receive their 
 requested funding, and important to US GOs, the level of GO funding should 
 increase (depending on the numbers of proposals accepted relative to AO-1).  
 The main area of concern expressed by the reviewers was the small number of 
 US lead author papers.   This dearth was ameliorated by the acknowledged 
 fact that most GOs had not received their data sufficiently long enough 
 before this review to be able to publish them.  

 2) XMM-Newton calibrations are in good shape.

 The calibration of the XMM-Newton scientific instruments (and instrument 
 modes) are reasonably accurate at this point, and the situation will continue 
 to improve.  A calibration guide for the EPIC detectors is nearly ready for 
 release which will provide extensive information on the current calibration 
 status.

 3) The XMM-Newton archive is open and GO data are flowing.

 XMM-Newton data are now arriving in a timely fashion for Guest Observers.  
 The average time between an observation and delivery of the data is less 
 than one month.  With the opening of the XSA (XMM-Newton Science Archive), 
 the SOC added a feature allowing PIs to download their data directly with 
 no shipping delays.  The archive is being populated and there are a 
 considerable number of observations (438) publicly available for scientific 
 analysis.

 4) SAS V5.3.3 release continues major improvements.

 With the release of SAS V5.3.3, XMM-Newton users have a reliable and 
 usable tool for the analysis of their data.  While a few bugs will no
 doubt still crop up from time to time, the current version will allow 
 nearly all users to fully utilize their data.

 5) Revised version of the ABC Guide (v1.2) is ready.

 The GSFC GOF has revised the ABC Guide for the analysis of XMM-Newton
 data for SAS V5.3.3 (although improvement of the document will continue 
 when needed).  The ABC Guide can be found at:
 http://xmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xmm/about_docs.html

 6) RGS extended source analysis software available.

 One of the strengths of the XMM-Newton Observatory is the ability to
 perform high-resolution spectroscopy of moderately (~1 arcmin) extended 
 sources.  However, since there are a range of dispersion angles on the 
 grating arrays, resulting spectra are consequently broadened.  Authored 
 by Andy Rasmussen of the RGS instrument team, the latest XSPEC software 
 (v11.2.0, released as part of the HEASoft v5.2 package on 2002 June 25) 
 contains a new model to handle the broadening of extended RGS sources 
 called "rgsxsrc".

 Given a high resolution image of the source, this model will collapse
 the image in the RGS cross-dispersion dimension to form a convolution
 function for any spectral order and model generated in XSPEC.

 For further details, consult Sec. 6.7 of The ABC Guide for XMM-Newton
 Data Analysis at: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xmm/abc/

 7) New HEASARC Browse data table XMMMASTER.

 A new database table in Browse called "xmmmaster" is now in place.  This 
 table is a merger of xmmlog and xmmpublic, and as such supersedes, and 
 will replace both of those tables in the near future. It will also, in 
 the near future, have links to the data at the Vilspa XSA in a similar 
 fashion to our Chandra data links to CXC.  This will allow a direct 
 connection between W3BROWSE and the XMM-Newton archive (XSA).  Browse 
 can be accessed at:
    http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/db-perl/W3Browse/w3browse.pl

 8) Budget AO for successful US AO-2 GOs imminent.

 As soon as the AO-2 results are announced by ESA, NASA will release an
 Announcement of Opportunity for applying for funding to support the
 scientific analysis of successful investigations.  The budget AO will 
 be open to all GOs whose primary affiliation is with a US institution.
 This includes both PIs and Co-Is on proposals with a foreign PI.

 9) SAS Workshop to be held at GSFC.

 The GOF is planning to hold a several-day SAS workshop in early November
 at GSFC.  If you are interested in attending such a workshop (attendance
 will be limited) please let us know for our planning purposes.  The SAS 
 Workshop held at Vilspa was a success.

10) Call for comments/concerns to be presented to the European Users Group.

 The next meeting of the XMM-Newton Users Group will take place in mid 
 September.  As one of the US representatives to this group, Dr. Richard 
 Mushotzky invites the US community to provide comments/concerns about the 
 XMM-Newton project which he will bring to the attention of the USG.  
 (Please respond to xmmhelp@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov.)

11) GO feedback.

 A couple months ago the GOF sent out a questionnaire to US GOs to get
 general feedback on the XMM-Newton project and specific reasons why so 
 few US lead author papers have appeared in press.  We include below the
 results of the survey, comments from the survey respondents, and our 
 answers in cases where they are appropriate (and where we have any).

 In the list below Num is the number of respondents, Ave is the average
 value of the response, and Dis is the dispersion of the responses.  A
 grade of 0 indicated that the respondent completely disagreed with the
 statement while a grade of 5 would indicate complete agreement.

Num Ave Dis
17  3.9 1.4   I have not (or have just recently) received my data.
15  3.1 1.6   I study extended structures which is currently very difficult.
14  2.1 1.4   The data were too heavily contaminated by soft proton flares 
              to be useful.
12  2.5 1.7   The archive was too sparsely populated.
16  3.3 1.4   The software was difficult to use or too limited.
16  3.1 1.3   Not another %#$*& software system to learn.
15  3.3 1.1   The documentation was difficult to use or too limited.
15  2.3 1.5   I had to analyze my Chandra data first because the 
              proprietary period was about to expire and have not had 
              time to get to my XMM data.
12  1.8 1.1   I've given the data to my undergrad/grad student--- They 
              are still working on it (or so they told me)
12  1.8 0.8   I was otherwise occupied/too lazy to analyze the data 
              before now.
13  1.9 1.5   What are you talking about, I have published my data or 
              presented them at a conference.

Additional comments and responses can be found at:
   http://xmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xmm/xmmhp_news_questionnaire.html
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