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Chandra      |             CC     XX XX    OO OO          | CXC
Electronic   |            CC       XXX    OO   OO         | Number 92
Bulletin     |             CC     XX XX    OO OO          | February
             |              CCC  XX   XX    OOO           | 2010
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Welcome to the Chandra X-ray Center's Electronic News Bulletin Number
92.

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. New Instrument Pages 

2. TGCat News
    
3. Reminder: Chandra Users' Discussion Group

 


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Item
1. New Instrument Pages
============================


The CXC is pleased to announce the availability of new Instrument Pages at

http://cxc.harvard.edu/cal/Acis/
http://cxc.harvard.edu/cal/Hrc/
http://cxc.harvard.edu/cal/Letg/
http://cxc.harvard.edu/cal/Hetg/

They are designed to provide a user-friendly interface to technical
calibration information.   Comments from the Chandra user community
are welcome and should be submitted via helpdesk.


Andrea Prestwich
Chandra Director's Office

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Item
2.  TGCat News
===================

- Web Interface:

We have changed the web interface to TGCat, the 
Chandra Grating Data Catalog and Archive (http://tgcat.mit.edu/).  

The new interface

    * is menu    based;
    * supports multiple unified "plug in" back-end interfaces, 
       such as  Virtual Observatory (VO) tables;
    * has much smaller web data volume transfer;
    * remembers user queries; and
    * has an enhanced    download package management interface.

For a while, the  old interface will be available at http://tgcat.mit.edu/prev/.

For further details, see  the Announcement linked on the main page:   http://tgcat.mit.edu/explanation.php


- Animated demos:

		There are three, 5-minute, screen-captured sessions showing typical
		usages of TGCat.  These can be useful for seeing what screens should
                                look like. 
	                (We have had reports of missing menus for some browsers,  but for a 
                                first time user, you wouldn't know they weren't there.)  The videos' 
                                links can be found on the main "Help" page 
                                (http://tgcat.mit.edu/tgHelp.php). 


- Reprocessing:

For users of the TGCat ISIS reprocessing scripts: there are two
enhancements in  the latest software version:

  * automatic application of the HRC-S time-dependent gain in PI
    computation, IF CIAO 4.2 and the CALDB 4.2.0 are  installed.
    This reduces LETGS backgrounds by  about a factor of 2. (See the
    "HRC-S Imaging and  Grating Data" section of the CIAO 4.2 Release
     Notes at http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/releasenotes/ciao_4.2_release.html
    under "How CIAO 4.2 and CALDB 4.2.0 Affect Your Analysis"). 

  * automatic (or manual) production of Type I PHA files (single
    spectrum), which can be more convenient for Xspec users.  The Type
    II files (multi-order) will still be available.

For software information, see the "Help" menu on the main page.

Reprocessing plans: in order to provide updated analysis-ready
products which include the HRC-S time-dependent gain-correction, and
the latest updates to ACIS contamination, we intend to reprocess all
LETGS observations and all ACIS observations since 2005 sometime in
the next 2 months.  We will also add the split Type I PHA files to the
data products.  We will announce completion on the web page and to
this distribution.



David Huenemoerder, for the Grating Analysis Team.

Send comments or feedback to tgcat@space.mit.edu.


  
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Item 3.  Reminder: Chandra Users' Discussion Group
==================================================


An e-mail discussion group is available for use by 
Chandra observers. Trade your ideas, questions and 
answers with other Chandra users. Messages sent to 
the group's e-mail address will be distributed to 
those who have subscribed to the group.


Check it out and sign up at (corrected):  
http://cxc.harvard.edu/chandra-users/discussion_group.html



 
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