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             |              CCC  XX   XX    OOO           |
Chandra      |             CC     XX XX    OO OO          | CXC
Electronic   |            CC       XXX    OO   OO         | Number 22
Bulletin     |             CC     XX XX    OO OO          | March
             |              CCC  XX   XX    OOO           | 2003
             |                                            |
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Welcome to the Chandra X-ray Center's Electronic News Bulletin Number 22.

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. Tell us what you think about CIAO and/or the Proposal Planning Tools
   

2. Cycle 5 Updates

3. Access to the CDA for users with poor internet connectivity

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Item 1. Tell us what you think about CIAO and/or the Proposal Planning Tools
        
============================================================================


We are requesting your feedback to the CXC Software User Survey on
the web at:

	>>> http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/survey/

     The information you provide in your response is very important to 
us, and will help us to ensure that we are meeting the needs of the 
Chandra user community.

     Your responses will also assist us in making future decisions about 
CIAO software and documentation development

     Please take 5 minutes to respond to the survey to help us in this
endeavor.  We would appreciate a response by MARCH 21, after which we 
will use the input obtained to evaluate our next course of action. 
Please also pass this request on to any of your colleagues who use the 
Chandra software and who may not otherwise be aware of this survey.  We 
ask that each user of the Chandra software take the time to fill out the 
survey form individually.

Results will be compiled and published on the web at

          >>>http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/survey/swstat.html

Apologies if you have gotten this from another source.  



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Item 2. Cycle 5 Updates
=======================

We have recently posted three updates to assist in proposal preparation 
linked from the Proposer page on the CXC web site or directly at:

http://cxc.harvard.edu/proposer/cyc5.update.html

Any other urgent messages will be posted in the same location. 


*** Submitting Previous Chandra Programs page:
Please include your one-page list of previous Chandra programs as a final, 
additional page in your science justification PostScript file. A one-page 
CV/Biblio (optional) can also be added if desired.

*** PIMMS Background Estimates:
Please note that the background rates output by PIMMS correspond to the full
energy range of the selected detector regardless of the energy range
specified by the user for the output count rate. Please refer to the POG
for details of the energy dependence, e.g. Section 6.10 for ACIS."

*** RPS: Reloading a saved HTML file:
For Netscape browser versions prior to version 6, use the "Reload" button 
at the top or bottom of the form. For newer Netscape browsers, use the 
browser "File/File Open" menu option."





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Item 3. Access to the CDA for users with poor internet connectivity
        
===================================================================


We are very well aware of the problems that some of our users outside
North America and Western Europe have in downloading data from the
Chandra Data Archive.  Access to high-speed internet lines is not
available everywhere in the world.  We would like to help alleviate
this problem and, in order to do so, are soliciting information from
users who are affected by poor internet connectivity or who know about
colleagues in their region who are so affected.  The first thing we
want to do is assess the magnitude of the problem and collect
information on the regions most affected.

If the above applies to you, please provide us with the following
information:

Name:
Institution:
City:
Country:
Number of researchers represented by this response:
Estimated number of observations downloaded per year:
  (order of magnitude is good enough)
Available download bandwidth in kBytes/s:
  (typical value)
Would it help to have a mirror site in your region?
E-mail address:

Please send your e-mail responses to: arcops@head-cfa.harvard.edu
Thank you for your help.

Arnold Rots
Chandra Data Archive Operations


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