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Chandra      |             CC     XX XX    OO OO          | CXC
Electronic   |            CC       XXX    OO   OO         | Number 68
Bulletin     |             CC     XX XX    OO OO          | December
             |              CCC  XX   XX    OOO           | 2007
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Welcome to the Chandra X-ray Center's Electronic News Bulletin Number 68.

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.  Chandra Cycle 10 Call for Proposals

2.  CIAO 4.0 and CALDB 3.4.2 released 14 December 2007

3.  CDFS Special Call: Approved Archive Projects Announced

4.  HEAD 2008 Meeting and HEAD Executive Committee Election 

5.  The Chandra Blog has launched!
 
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Item 1.  Chandra Cycle 10 Call for Proposals
============================================


The CXC is pleased to announce the release of the Chandra Call for Proposals 
(CfP). The Call for Proposals, the Proposers' Observatory Guide (POG), 
proposal planning software and general information are posted on the 
"Proposer" web page at the CXC website:

http://cxc.harvard.edu/proposer/

Proposals are due: 20 March 2008

Hardcopy documents are available on request to the CXC helpdesk.


Belinda Wilkes       
Assistant Director
Chandra X-ray Center (CXC)


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Item 2.  CIAO 4.0 and CALDB 3.4.2 released 14 December 2007
===========================================================


The Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) is pleased to announce that version
4.0 of CIAO ("Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations") and
version 3.4.2 of CALDB are now available for download from:
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/

CALDB 3.4.2 may be used with both CIAO 3.4 and CIAO 4.0.

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

CIAO 4.0 includes updates to tools, support (beta) for ASCII file
formats in the Data Model library, a *new* more powerful version of
ChIPS - the CIAO plotting package - and an experimental (beta) version
of the *new* Sherpa - the CIAO modeling and fitting package.
CIAO 4.0 includes for the first time *Python* along with the veteran
S-Lang as a user scripting environment, and CRATES, a software package
which provides a high level I/O interface for use within various
scripting environments (i.e. ChIPS and Sherpa use CRATES for I/O).

Since CIAO4.0 is a major release with several new packages and
applications, we plan to support CIAO3.4 for the near future.
We suggest that users who install CIAO 4.0 keep the CIAO 3.4 
installation available as well.
The CIAO3.4 web site is now accessible at:
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao3.4

           -----------------------------------
TOOLS:
The most notable tool change in CIAO 4.0 is that the ACIS
dead area correction is turned on by default. There is a new version of
tgextract - named tgextract2 - which provides similar functionality, but
allows large and asymmetric regions for better determination of
background counts. Significant work has been done on the tool wavdetect.
The sso_freeze tool has been enhanced so that it can create an
object-centered aspect solution which, among other uses, allows an
object-centered exposure map to be generated.

The Data Model library now supports (in beta version) an ASCII kernel
which allows users to generate ASCII format files for use within Data
Model enabled tools (e.g. dmlist, dmcopy) and apply the suite of Data
Model capabilities to those files.

CHIPS:
CIAO4.0 includes a new, more powerful version of ChIPS, the CIAO
plotting package. It can be used during data analysis and to create
publication-quality figures. Details and documentation on the new system
are available from the new ChIPS website at
http://cxc.harvard.edu/chips/

SHERPA:
CIAO4.0 features an experimental (beta) version of the new Sherpa, the
CIAO modeling and fitting package.
Details and documentation on the new system are available from the
Sherpa website at
http://cxc.harvard.edu/sherpabeta/
This is the initial phase of the Sherpa redesign and not all of the
functionality of the CIAO 3.4 version is implemented yet.
We anticipate additional releases in 2008 to provide this functionality.
The "About the Sherpa Beta Release" page at
http://cxc.harvard.edu/sherpabeta/about.html
outlines new features and provides a summary of missing functionality.

OBSVIS:
CIAO 4.0 includes an new implementation of the ObsVis (Observation
Visualizer) application for planning Chandra observations.
Major improvements include corrected aimpoints, support for multiple
fields of view, and support for multiple background images.

Read the complete CIAO 4.0 release notes, including the section "How
CIAO 4.0 and CALDB 3.4.2 Affect Your Analysis" at:
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/releasenotes/ciao_4.0_release.html

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

In tandem with CIAO 4.0 is the release of the Chandra Calibration
Database version 3.4.2.  This release includes
- ACIS time-dependent gain files for Epoch 31 (Aug-Oct 2007) and
- the Chandra Proposal Cycle 10 "PIMMS" effective area files.

CALDB 3.4.2 may be used with both CIAO 3.4 and CIAO 4.0.

Detailed information about CALDB 3.4.2 can be found in the Chandra
Calibration Database website at http://cxc.harvard.edu/caldb/

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

CIAO 4.0 is the first release of CIAO to be fully GPL
compliant.  OTS (off-the-shelf) software has been updated to current
versions.  A new test script ("smoke test") is included to aid users
in verifying installation of the release.

CIAO 4.0 is distributed for the following platforms:

      * Solaris 8
      * Fedora Core 4
      * Fedora Core 7
      * Mac OS X PowerPC 10.4
      * Mac OS X Intel 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/).

CIAO 4.0 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 3.  CDFS Special Call: Approved Archive Projects Announced
===============================================================


Results of Special Call for Archival Proposals making 
use of DDT  data on the Chandra Deep Field South are available at:
	http://cxc.harvard.edu/target_lists/cycle9/cyc9_CDFS.html

Paul Green for Chandra Director's Office


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

Item 4.  HEAD 2008 Meeting and HEAD Executive Committee Election
================================================================


If you have not already done so, please sign-up at
http://www.confcon.com/head2008/ for email announcements concerning
the HEAD2008 meeting to be held in LA from March 31 to April 3. 
You also can now submit abstracts for papers or posters through this same site.
The abstract deadline is January 18, 2008.

As during past HEAD meetings, we anticipate that there will be a few
special sessions and invite HEAD members to propose possible topics
and speakers for these sessions.  Each of these sessions will likely
be 1.5 to 2 hours in length. The HEAD Executive Committee reviews and
selects the special sessions.  The deadline for submitting proposals
for special sessions is January 3, 2008.  Please send requests for
special sessions to BOTH Mitch Begelman (mitch@jila.colorado.edu) and
to Christine Jones (cjones@cfa.harvard.edu) and they will distribute
them to the Executive Committee.

*****************

HEAD BALLOTS for proposed changes in By-Laws and for the election of
the Executive Committee have been emailed to all current HEAD members.
Please vote on or before January 3, 2008.

********************

Christine Jones


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Item 5.  The Chandra Blog has launched! 
=======================================

http://chandra.harvard.edu/blog/

We've had fantastic input for the Chandra blog so far and we'd like  
to see it grow and expand over the next few months.  If you have any  
ideas for articles or additional input, please let us know. Contact  
Megan Watzke (mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu/617 496 7998) and/or Kim Arcand  
(kkowal@cfa.harvard.edu/617 218 7196).

Kim Arcand  for the EPO Group



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