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Chandra      |             CC     XX XX    OO OO          | CXC
Electronic   |            CC       XXX    OO   OO         | Number 45
Bulletin     |             CC     XX XX    OO OO          | November
             |              CCC  XX   XX    OOO           | 2005
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Welcome to the Chandra X-ray Center's Electronic News Bulletin Number 45.

CXC Web site: cxc.harvard.edu

If you would like to unsubscribe from this alias, simply reply to this message
to let us know.  

Please use this website to update your address or email: 
         http://cxc.harvard.edu/cdo/udb/userdat.html

Contents:

1.  CIAO 3.3 and CALDB 3.2.0 Released - 21 November 2005    

2.  2005 Chandra Calibration Workshop Proceedings

3.  Constellation-X Town Hall Meeting at DC AAS, 
        Monday Jan 9 2006, 12:30-1:30 



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Item 1.  CIAO 3.3 and CALDB 3.2.0 Released - 21 November 2005  
      =======================================================

The Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) is pleased to announce that version 3.3
of CIAO ("Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations") and version
3.2.0 of CALDB are now available for download from:
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/

They will also be available from the European mirror site at:
http://ledas-cxc.star.le.ac.uk/ciao/download/
                           -----------------------------------

The CIAO 3.3 software release includes three new tools useful for
reprojecting files with different coordinate WCS (reproject_aspect,
reproject_image, and reproject_image_grid). It also includes a new tool
for extracting ACIS spectra - specextract - which automatically uses the
most appropriate response tool to create the RMF and replaces most of
the functionality of the psextract and acisspec tools.
CIAO 3.3 includes several improvements and bug fixes, most notably
significant changes to the region library which fix a number of problems
in the calculation of region areas. Additionally, error calculation
changes in dmextract and dmgroup improve the compatibility of the output
files with XSpec.
This release also includes the latest proposal planning tools for
Chandra Cycle 8.

For complete information on this release, please see the full Release
Notes (http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/releasenotes/) which also include the
section
"How CIAO 3.3 and CALDB 3.2.0 Affect Your Analysis".
                     -----------------------------

In tandem with CIAO3.3 is the release of the Chandra Calibration
Database CALDB 3.2.0 which contains the a new ACIS calibration suite
(n0005), new HRC-I gain maps and a new HRC-S calibration file to correct
the non-linearity in the HRC-S/LETG spatial wavelength scale

Detailed information about CALDB 3.2.0 can be found in the Chandra
Calibration Database website at http://cxc.harvard.edu/caldb/
                    ---------------------------------

CIAO3.3 is distributed for the following platforms:
* Solaris 8 (SunOS 5.8)
* Redhat Linux 6.2
* Redhat Linux 8 [runs also on RedHat 9 and other flavors of Linux]
* Mac OS X 10.2.8 (Jaguar) [binaries compatible with Mac OS X 10.3 and 
10.4]

More details at http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/platforms.html

                   -----------------------------------

As always please send questions and requests for enhancements to the CXC
HELPDESK (http://cxc.harvard.edu/helpdesk/)

CIAO3.3 is a collaborative effort between the SAO/CXC Science Data
Systems, the SAO/CXC Data Systems, and MIT/CXC personnel.

Antonella Fruscione (for the CIAO development team)

 
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Item 2.  2005 Chandra Calibration Workshop Proceedings  
      ================================================


The Chandra Calibration Workshop was held on Oct 31 and
Nov 1 in Cambridge, MA.  The presentations and posters
from the workshop are now available online, at
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ccw/proceedings/05_proc/

Vinay Kashyap for the CCW-LOC




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Item 3.  Constellation-X Town Hall Meeting at DC AAS
      ==============================================

               Monday Jan 9 2006, 12:30-1:30

There will be a one-hour Town Hall meeting on the Constellation X-ray Mission
(Con-X) during lunch on Monday (12:30-1:30) in order to update the community on
the mission.  There will also be a  parallel poster session with over 30
posters on the science goals and technologies of Con-X.  

With more than 100 times the collecting area of any previous spectroscopic
mission operating in the 0.25-40 keV bandpass, Con-X will enable
high-throughput, high spectral resolution studies of sources ranging from the
most luminous accreting supermassive black holes in the Universe to the disks
around young stars where planets form. Con-X is a key part of NASA's Science
Mission Directorate Beyond Einstein space science program. This mission was
ranked first after JWST among large space missions in the US National Academy
of Sciences McKee-Taylor & Turner Committee reports (Decadal Survey). For more
information, AAS members are encouraged to visit the Con-X website,
constellation.gsfc.nasa.gov

This town hall meeting will include presentations on the significant
programmatic and technical advances that been made recently. Time will be
allowed for discussion with the audience. The session will be chaired by Harvey
Tananbaum, Con-X Facility Science Team chair.  Presenting on behalf of the
Con-X Project, Facility Science Team, and Facility Science Team Panels will be:

Mission Update & Status, by Nicholas White, Con-X Project Scientist

This will include a brief update on the Beyond Einstein program and
Con-X's role as a flagship mission.  The baseline configuration for
Constellation-X is a set of four telescopes working in unison to
achieve a large collecting area.  This configuration is ready to enter
phase A and will be briefly described. 

Technology Update: Recent Advances on Optics & Detectors  by Michael
Garcia (Science Lead) and Jay Bookbinder (Mission Scientist)

Substantial progress has been made on the SXT and HXT mirrors. Individual SXT
reflectors have been made which meet the 10'' half-power diameter (HPD)
requirement.  The system error budget has been reevaluated to look for
improvements, and work on further improving the reflectors towards the system
goal of 5'' HPD is continuing.  Individual Hard X-ray Telescope (10-40 keV)
mirrors which are close to meeting the 30'' HPD goal have been made.  Progress
on the X-ray calorimeter, the gratings, CCD readouts, and the hard X-ray
CdZnTe detectors has also been significant and will be briefly described.  This
includes an update on the extensive work on a possible off-plane grating
configuration which may offer some new advantages.


Update to the Constellation-X Science Case by Ann Hornschemeier
(Deputy Project Scientist) & Michael  Garcia (Science Lead)

During late 2004 and early 2005, a large team of astrophysicists worked to
produce an update to the Constellation-X science case.  The result is a 45-page
booklet, outlining the important scientific questions for the decade following
this one and describes the areas where Con-X is going to have a major impact.
This presentation provides highlights from the updated science case, including
the exploration of the space-time geometry of black holes spanning nine orders
of magnitude in mass and the nature of the dark energy and dark matter which
govern the expansion and ultimate fate of the Universe.  Con-X will also
explore processes referred to as "cosmic feedback" whereby mechanical energy,
radiation, and chemical elements from star formation and black holes are
returned to interstellar and intergalactic medium. Con-X will also probe all
the important life cycles of matter, from stellar and planetary birth to
stellar death via supernova to stellar endpoints in the form of accreting
binaries and supernova remnants.

Michael Garcia for the Con-X Team


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