News 20190314 - XMM-Newton

XMM-Newton-NEWS

CONTENTS

• Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the XMM-Newton launch
• Users' Group meeeting #20: Invitation UG Chair
• XSAV11.0 release including the new ESA Cosmos login authentication system
• Update on the impact on the optical monitor of observations of Jupiter in revolution 3224
• FLIX upper-limit server updated

CELEBRATING THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE XMM-NEWTON LAUNCH

The XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre of the European Space Agency is happy to announce a series of initiatives to celebrate the upcoming 20th launch anniversary of XMM-Newton on 10 December 2019. You can find the latest news on the webpage

     http://xmm20anniversary.esa.int
 

We will continuously update the webpage information, events and online material. Stay Stuned!

USERS' GROUP MEETING #20: INVITATION FROM THE UG CHAIR

The XMM-Newton Users' Group (UG) will be holding its yearly meeting this coming May 7th and 8th, at ESAC

As is usual the UG welcomes all comments and suggestions on any relevant aspect of XMM-Newton operations and future direction. You may send these either directly to me, or if you prefer to any member of the UG.

Rudy Wijnands, UG-Chair 

The agenda for UG meeting #20 and contact information of the UG chair and all the other UG members are available at

     https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/users-group
 

XSAV11.0 RELEASE INCLUDING THE NEW ESA COSMOS LOGIN AUTHENTICATION SYSTEM

A new version of the XMM-Newton Science Archive (XSA v11.0) is available at

     https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/xsa
 

Since this release, on 14 March 2019, logging into the XMM-Newton Science Archive (XSA) is only possible using an ESA Cosmos account. For security reasons, the ESA Cosmos authentication system is being used for accessing data of all ESA archives.

ESA Cosmos accounts have been created for those PIs that did not have one previously, and that have current or pending proprietary observations. They should have already received an email with the access details.

Any other scientist without an existing ESA Cosmos account can register at

     https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xsa/self-registration
 

If you already have an ESA Cosmos account but have forgotten your username and/or password please click here

     https://cas.cosmos.esa.int/cas/passwd
 

Should you find any issue, do not hesitate to contact the XMM-Newton Helpdesk

UPDATE ON THE IMPACT ON THE OPTICAL MONITOR OF OBSERVATIONS OF JUPITER IN REVOLUTION 3224

In XMM-Newton News #200 it was reported that in revolution 3224, two accidental V-band exposures of Jupiter were made with the Optical Monitor (OM) which led to some damage to the instrument and reduced sensitivity - the so-called Jupiter depletion patch (JDP). We provide a brief update here on the impact.

Following the event, the affected region was characterised and incorporated into the OM bad-pixel map calibration data, described in XMM-CCF-REL-353, so that sources positioned within the JDP are flagged, by SAS software, as having quality issues.

Since the revolution 3224 event, routine OM monitoring observations of the White Dwarf standard stars (BPM16274 [V=14.2], GD153 [V=13.35] and HZ2 [V=13.88]), observed at the EPIC-pn prime boresight that is typically used for pointed XMM-Newton observations, have been conducted. These show a small but significant decline in count rate after the Jupiter observation compared to those before. Analysis is ongoing but decreases of ~5% (V,B,U), 3% (UVW1), 2%(UVM2) and 1.5% (UVW2) are seen in the BPM16274 data, which has been most observed since the event. Since the EPIC-pn prime position lies just outside the currently defined JDP region in the bad-pixel map, targets observed in this position since the event will not be flagged by SAS but will be subject to the abovementioned decrease in sensitivity.

The sensitivity change within the patch will continue to be monitored to better quantify the decrease, any time-dependence in it, the spatial extent of the patch and the filter dependence. Ultimately, the intent is to provide the means, via the SAS and calibration data, to correct at least target locations for the sensitivity decrease.

FLIX UPPER-LIMIT SERVER UPDATED

An upgraded version of the FLIX upper-limit server is now available at Leicester. This version currently uses DR7 data; DR8 data will be imported and used in the future.

The main change with respect to previous versions is that the FITS output file has additional columns, in particular it lists the count-rate to Energy Conversion Factors (ECFs) used in the flux upper-limit estimate. These ECFs are now those listed in the DR8 documentation. This tool is available at

     https://www.ledas.ac.uk/flix/flix.html

Yours sincerely,

XMM-Newton SOC