INTEGRAL Science Data Centre (ISDC)
===================================
http://www.isdc.unige.ch/integral/
Release Note
============
Package: osa_sw
Version: 10.2
Rel. Date: 10-Dec-2015
Updates: 05-Feb-2016: Addition of El Capitan (OS X 10.11)
05-Apr-2016: Updated binary for El Capitan (OS X 10.11)
solving a library dependency issue.
Contents
========
1. Introduction
2. Portability
3. System Requirements
4. Acknowledgements
5. Changes since last Release
1. Introduction
============
This is the release note for the official ISDC 'Off-line
Scientific Analysis' software version 10.2.
This release contains instrument specific analysis software for the
four INTEGRAL instruments (IBIS, SPI, JEM-X and OMC), and some
generic tools.
It runs on Linux and Mac OS X Intel platforms. This Release Note
gives some portability information and describes system
requirements.
The software is available to the scientific community as
downloadable binary tar files from the ISDC public release page at
http://www.isdc.unige.ch/integral/analysis#Software
If needed OSA can be compiled and installed from the source code as
well. The source code tar file is available via the above URL.
Information for user support is available at
http://www.isdc.unige.ch/integral/support/helpdesk
2. Portability
===========
Binary Packages
===============
The software was checked to correctly run on the following
platforms:
- Linux
- Scientific Linux release 6.7, Carbon (32 bit)
- Scientific Linux release 6.6, Carbon (64 bit)
- Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS (64 bit)
- Mac OS X
- Mavericks (OS X 10.9)
- Yosemite (OS X 10.10)
- El Capitan (OS X 10.11)
The binary OSA software packages were built on the above Mac OS X
platforms, on the Ubuntu and the Scientific Linux 32 and 64 systems.
They are ready to use and contain everything you need to run the
OSA software. If needed you may compile and link your own software
with the libraries included in the binary OSA packages.
In general, the OSA software will also run on a variety of other
Linux platforms. As we at the ISDC do not necessarily have access
to those platforms, we only provide full support for the platforms
mentioned above.
Depending on the particular choice of your Linux distribution you
may miss specific system libraries when running OSA from a binary
package. Please let us know in case you require additional
libraries.
Source Code Package
===================
Before you consider building OSA from source, please consider
using the supplied binary packages.
If you need to build the OSA software from the source code, note
that the following platforms have been tested:
- Linux
Scientific Linux release 6.7, Carbon (32 bit):
GNU C/C++ (gcc) version 4.4.7
GNU Fortran (gfortran) version 4.4.7
Scientific Linux release 6.6, Carbon (64 bit):
GNU C/C++ (gcc) version 4.4.7
GNU Fortran (gfortran) version 4.4.7
Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS:
GNU C/C++ (gcc) version 4.8.2
GNU Fortran (gfortran) version 4.8.2
- Mac OS X
Mavericks (OS X 10.9.5):
G95 Fortran (g95) compiler: G95 (GCC 4.2.4 (g95 v.0.93) Oct 18 2014)
Yosemite (OS X 10.10.5):
G95 Fortran (g95) compiler: G95 (GCC 4.2.4 (g95 v.0.93) Oct 18 2014)
El Capitan (OS X 10.11.1):
G95 Fortran (g95) compiler: G95 (GCC 4.2.4 (g95 v.0.93) Nov 3 2015)
3. System Requirements
===================
Binary Packages
===============
- Linux
The OSA software requires as run-time library the
libgfortran.so.3 and the libc.so.6 libraries. Please
refer to the Installation Guide for more details.
- Mac OS X
X11 -- if not yet available on your system, you will have to
install X11 from e.g. the Mac OS X installation disks.
Source Code Package
===================
Before compiling and installing the osa_sw version 10 from the
source code, you need to make sure that the following packages are
installed:
- GNU make version 3.79.1 (or higher)
- ROOT version 5.34.34
Since OSA version 3.0 you can choose between an installation
with and without ROOT.
If you choose to install without ROOT, you will NOT benefit from
all OSA functionalities, i.e. GUI support is not available. To
learn more about how to install OSA without ROOT please see
Appendix B section 'Setting up the Environment' of the
'Installation Guide for the INTEGRAL Offline Scientific Analysis'
ROOT is available via the ISDC WWW-site at URL:
http://www.isdc.unige.ch/integral/osa/current/developers
Warning! : For Mac OS X users it is required to install
ROOT from the source code. For other operating
systems, this is also recommended. If you want to
download ROOT as a binary package, you must make sure
that the compiler used to compile ROOT is identical
to the one you are using for the installation of the
OSA SW. Otherwise, please download the ROOT source
code package and compile and install it yourself.
Using different compilers may result in serious
problems with your system.
- X11
On Mac OS X you have to have X11 available. You may install it
from the Mac OS X installation disks.
- Disk space for installation
The unpacked osa_sw binary package requires approximately
2 GB depending on the operating system.
The unpacked osa_sw source code package requires some 300 MB of
disk space.
Once the software is built and installed a total of some 2 GB
of disk space is needed dependending on the operating system and
compiler used.
Note: After the successful installation from the source code,
you may reduce the disk space needed by osa_sw by
executing 'make distclean' in the same directory where
you executed 'make global_install'. This will reduce the
amount of disk space needed to some 890 MB. You may
additionally remove the source code directories
(support-sw, analysis-sw, contrib-sw). This will reduce
the disk space needed to some 790 MB.
4. Acknowledgements
================
The OSA math library (isdcmath) includes code from the following
packages:
- BLAS / LINPACK
http://www.netlib.org/blas/index.html
- CDFLIB90
http://odin.mdacc.tmc.edu/anonftp/
- LAPACK
http://netlib.org/lapack/index.html
- PORT from Bell Labs
http://netlib.bell-labs.com/netlib/port/
- PDA from Starlink
http://star-www.rl.ac.uk/static_www/soft_further_PDA.html
5. Changes since last Release
==========================
====================
OSA 10.1 -> OSA 10.2
====================
-------
General
-------
For OSA version 10.2 we support binary distribution for the recent Mac
OS X operating systems (Yosemite, Mavericks and El Capitan), as well as
for Scientific Linux (32 and 64 bits) and Ubuntu (64 bits).
----
IBIS
----
With OSA 10.1, after revolution 1190, there was a drift of the
reconstructed energies for ISGRI and an artificial contraction of the scale
below ~40 keV.The OSA 10.2 release overcomes this problem in a parametric
way and provides access to updated Ancillary Response files that cover the
full mission lifetime. Therefore, we recommend to update the IC tree before
using OSA 10.2. We remark that the new ARFs are not back-compatible with
OSA 10.1 starting from rev. 1191. For more information, we refer to the
known issues.
-----
JEM-X
-----
In addition to the technical patches required for the software to work on
all supported operating systems, the jemx_science_analysis software has
been adapted to perform analysis not only on pointings but also on slew
data. Because of the dithering pointing strategy, each INTEGRAL observation
comprises a number of POINTINGS and SLEWS (all together called Science
Windows -SCWs). During pointings the satellite has a fixed orientation,
while during slews the orientation changes preventing most of the
scientific data exploitation. Until OSA 10.1, the jemx_science_analysis
forbad the slew usage. However, the analysis of slew data could be relevant
for some peculiar observations, as, for example, bursting sources or during
the Earth observations, in which all pointings are tagged as slews. A new
parameter ("ScwType") is now available for the jemx_science_analysis in OSA
10.2, which can assume values POINTING, SLEW, or ALL to permit the
exploitation of all data.
The JEM-X instrument team provided a new set of IMOD files, which were
fully tested also at the ISDC. Thanks to these Instrument Model files, the
instrument response is fully characterised in the energy range 3-20 keV for
most of the mission lifetime. Therefore, the spectral analysis is now
possible in the range 3-20 keV for data after 2003-08-11 (rev 100), and in
the range 5-20 keV for earlier data. We recommend the users to update the
IC tree via the rsync command as described in the ISDC pages
(http://isdc.unige.ch/integral/analysis#Software) before performing any
analysis. This ensures that the new IMOD files, RMF and latest energy gain
calibrations are available for the analysis.
---
SPI
---
The pipeline scripts have been corrected for bugs in the parameter
handling.
====================
OSA 10.0 -> OSA 10.1
====================
-------
General
-------
A few bugs in the code have been noticed by Vittorio Zecca, who has also
provided some patches for fixing them. They were mainly related to variable
declaration and cleaned the code. We have now corrected them and cleaned
the code in new versions of `dal', `wcslib', and `spiros', which have been
tested. These bugs did not produce any noticeable effect on scientific
products.
-----
ISGRI
-----
Some inappropriate behaviors of the image reconstruction program
ii_skyimage have been noticed in OSA 10, which lead to inaccurate image
reconstruction for sources with position determined by the catalog. In
particular, the location of detected sources is now appropriately fixed to
the catalog entry, when the parameter 'SearchMode' is set to 2; a bug is
fixed when merging duplicated source in the local lists.
The program `ghost_buster' is used to reduce the appearance of ghosts due
to incorrect modelling of the mask, when very bright sources are present in
the field of view. These sources are flagged in the ISDC catalog with
ISGRI_FLAG2=5. The previous version of ghost_busters had an hardcoded limit
for the field of view within which the correction is applied. This is now
set with a task parameter and increase from 160 pixels to 180.
A context file is downlinked from the spacecraft containing the
deactivation low-threshold for ISGRI pixels and pixel recognised as noisy
or flickering. In very rare cases, the context file is not downlinked or a
different one is required for calibration tests. A substitute file is then
provided by the IBIS Team and ingested in the IC tree. However, a feature
in OSA 10.0 prevented the use of this offline context file. The feature is
now corrected and the IC-based context file can now be used.
-----
JEM-X
-----
in OSA 10.0 we have changed the internal units of JEM-X spectra and light
curves to the standard cgs (counts/s/cm^2). Due to a bug, the count rate in
the spectra extracted with OSA 10.0 did not reflect the real detector
count rate. The flux derived from the spectrum was correct however, because
of proper response files. This inconsistency is now solved in OSA 10.1 and
the corresponding response files have been updated in the IC tree. As a
consequence the updated spectral response files tree cannot be used with
OSA 10.0, because it would provide a wrong flux. We note that the
approximate Crab count rate is 100 cts/s in the full energy band.
Improvements are present in the gain correction to reconstruct the event
energy. This task is increasingly difficult for the software due to the
dimming of calibration sources. Adjustments are needed to comply with the
evolving situation. Calibration files are regularly produced by the JEM-X
Team and ingested in the IC tree at the ISDC so that the analysis is as
accurate as possible. Regular updates of the IC tree are strongly suggested
to the users for an accurate analysis.
---
SPI
---
Some users working on phase-resolved analysis of X-ray pulsars reported
that the spectra have a wrong normalisation. We have updated the
spi_science_analysis chain to compute consistently the area scale keyword
so that to have the appropriate source flux in each phase-resolved
spectrum.
---
OMC
---
The manipulation of times in the internal OBT format had some criticality's
on a 64-bit architecture, these have been corrected and the times are now
accurate on each architecture. This affected the production of light curves
from the OMC.
===================
OSA 9.0 -> OSA 10.0
===================
-----
ISGRI
-----
OSA 10 contains important improvements in the reconstruction of the photon
energy for the detector ISGRI of IBIS. The conversion factor from
electronic pulse-height to incoming photon energy has been observed to
change with time. In OSA 9, the description of such gain drift was based
on IREM counters integrated over time, to take into account the solar
flares, but the measurement of the background lines at 59 and 511 keV
showed that this correction was not valid along the whole mission.
OSA 10 improves very significantly the reconstruction of the real photon
energy, in particular the secular drift of gains, which was not correctly
accounted for in OSA 9. The main improvements are the following:
1. The dependency of gains and offsets on the temperature of the eight
modules in which the ISGRI detector is subdivided has been calibrated
on ground and in-flight, and accounted for in OSA versions later than
7. In OSA 10, this correction has been improved by using the measured
module temperatures of the thermal probes instead of assuming a
constant temperature gradient between the different modules all along
the mission.
2. A temporal dependency of the gain and offset through which the pulse
heights are converted into energy has been determined by using the
calibration lines on the existing data. A low-order polynomial fit
ensures that this correction can be used on new data and will be
monitored throughout the INTEGRAL lifetime. It has been observed that
the gain and offset evolution depend also on the event rise-time and
therefore a calibration table has been produced which accounts for
these complex dependency and provides an optimal stability of the
energy reconstruction over time. The energy resolution degraded over
the mission by a factor of ~2, while the non-optimal correction
performed in OSA9 introduced a spurious worsening by a factor of ~3.
3. The lower threshold at which the ISGRI pixels are sensitive to photons
is continuously adjusted over the mission to ensure the optimal
detector performance. As a consequence of the the new energy
reconstruction and the degradation of the spectral resolution, also the
function which accounts for this effect to reconstruct the source flux
below ~30 keV needed an update.
4. New spectral calibration files. A set of ancillary response files
(ARFs) for different epochs has been produced using Crab observations,
this is necessary to account for the detector evolution. A weighted
mean of the response files based on temporal proximity is provided by
OSA when extracting a source spectrum for an arbitrary data-set. This
ensures that the best available knowledge of the detector response is
used in each spectral fitting.
-----
JEM-X
-----
The software has been significantly improved in several aspects.
The improvements to the standard spectral extraction algorithm increase
noticeably the stability of almost-constant source spectra throughout the
mission and refine the determination of source detection significance at
the imaging level. The introduction of an experimental algorithm for the
image reconstruction, based on the Pixel Illumination Fraction, leads to
substantial improvements on the sensitivity for weak source detection, in
particular in crowded fields or in proximity of strong sources.
In the production of JEM-X mosaic maps, the user has now the possibility
to choose Aitoff-Hammer projection, which makes possible the mosaicking of
large parts of the sky without introducing distortions of the maps. This
projection can be therefore applied to reproduce e.g. in a single map a
Galactic Plane Scan observation. An example of the output image can be
seen in the figure below.
The reconstruction of energy is based on continuously updated calibration
files which are ingested in the instrument characteristic repository
maintained by ISDC.
Other changes introduced in OSA 10 include:
- the introduction of an improved algorithm to compute the gain
correction; with time and age the JEM-X units (in particular JEM-X 1) have
become sensitive not only to temperature, but also to the total trigger
rate of the detector. This last effect is now taken into account in the
software, in cases where the correction is not performed through an IC
gain history table.
- the correction of a bug in updating the spectrum header keywords when
the analysis is performed within a user-defined time interval; the header
keywords "TSTART" and "TSTOP" of the spectrum file are now updated taking
into account the time interval required by the user (as defined through
"timeStart" and "timeStop" parameters of jemx_science_analysis). Also the
column "EXPOSURE" reports now the correct integration time for the
spectrum.
In addition, the JEM-X User Manual has been thoroughly updated.
---
SPI
---
OSA 10 improvements on SPI are mainly related to the introduction of
updated calibration files. The new Instrumental Response File take now
into account the failure of detector 1 occurred in May 2010. New
flat-fields have been produced, which may cover more finely the mission
and provide a better modeling of the background evolution. An updated bad
pointing list is given to the observer, including also the latest
annealing phases that the SPI detector has undergone.
Minor changes have been applied to the pipeline scripts, correcting for
small bugs in the parameter handling. The format of the final spectral
products resulting from both "spiros" and "spimodfit" analysis have been
slightly modified to allow a smooth analysis with the latest XSPEC
versions (version 12.7 for the time being).
Finally, a short overview of the SPI products in the HEAVENS database
maintained at ISDC has been included in the SPI User Manual. A first-look
data analysis of SPI observations will be available through this new web
interface, including both imaging, spectra and SPI lightcurves.
---------------
Compilers, ROOT
---------------
OSA 10 compiles now with more recent compilers, i.e. version 4.2 and 4.4.
A few warnings and bugs, shown up with these compilers were fixed.
A new ROOT version (5.32) is used with OSA 10. There were no changes
required to build OSA with this ROOT version.
==================
OSA 8.0 -> OSA 9.0
==================
-----
ISGRI
-----
OSA 9 improves very significantly the quality of the results of the ISGRI
image, lightcurve and spectral analysis by taking into account the effect
of bright sources when subtracting the background and cleaning the ghost
images. These improvements are particularly important for the analysis of
faint sources when many Ms of data need to be combined together. The
effective exposure time at which systematics are becoming a problem has
more than doubled (e.g. from 2Ms to > 4Ms in the galactic centre regions).
1. Ghost cleaning
ISGRI images around bright sources are affected by systematics at the
level of a few percent. These systematics come from an imperfect modeling
of the instrument. These imperfections limit our capability to clean
ghosts images and result in an effective loss of sensitivity (or usable
exposure time) in the areas of the sky within10 degrees of bright
sources.
The main problem is likely coming from the glue applied between the coded
mask elements and the NOMEX supporting structure. A small amount of that
glue leaked in some open elements of the mask during the manufacturing
process and is absorbing hard X-rays efficiently at low energy. This
additional absorption is not yet included in the mask model.
Fortunately most of the effects concentrate on some specific areas of the
mask. When a bright source illuminates the detector through the mask, only
a small fraction of the detector pixels will be affected by the glue. A
new executable filters out these pixels before performing the analysis.
This is enough to decrease the systematics from a few % to less than
0.005.
This filtering executable uses a catalogue of bright sources. This
catalogue should not be unnecessarily large to avoid decreasing the
achievable sensitivity. The bright source catalogue provided with OSA,
used by default, produces good results in most cases.
2. Background normalization
During the analysis background images are subtracted from ISGRI detector
images. These images are normalized using the observed data to take the
background variability into account. As the derived background
normalization could be affected by the presence a strong source is in the
FOV, the background subtraction software now uses a bright source
catalogue to exclude pixels illuminated by these sources from the
background normalization determination. A default catalogue is provided.
The bright source catalogues mentioned above are derived from the ISDC
reference catalogue using specific selection flags. The meaning of these
flags is explained on http://www.isdc.unige.ch/integral/science/catalog
and can be modified manually e.g. if a bright transient appears in the
field of view during an observation.
OSA9 has also been modified to use uniformity gain maps for the ISGRI
pixels. These maps are being calibrated and should be provided as
calibration files in the future. Finally three new ISGRI ancillary
response files are provided to cover the latest observations.
Finally a small number of software problems have been corrected, without
impact on the results.
-----
JEM-X
-----
On the JEM-X side, this release is mostly a maintenance release. No new
functionality has been added. Stability of the software has been improved
in several places. This is visible in particular in the imaging step when
performing analyses with very narrow energy bins and/or very short time
intervals, leading to shadowgrams with few or even zero counts.
Documentation has also been consolidated.
The source detection algorithm in the imaging step has been improved, so
that it does not stop anymore after the first rejected detection (which
usually occurs in the edges of the image, which are the noisiest parts).
As a result, the imaging step is now able to recover all significant
sources in the field of view.
The most important change in OSA 9 is the correction of a bug that made
the gain correction only partially used in some recent revolutions. This
could generate spurious effects in the flux determination in some cases.
It is advised to check any unexpected OSA 8 result that makes uses of data
in revolution beyond ~700 by performing an identical OSA 9 analysis.
----
SPI
----
The main improvements come with the introduction of updated
calibration files.
- A new Instrumental Response File accounts for the failure of
the third detector occurred in February 2009.
- New flat-field templates cover more finely the mission to
model more properly the background evolution.
- An updated bad pointing list is given to the observer.
The pipeline scripts have been corrected for marginal bugs in
the parameter handling and the user is given the opportunity
to choose the flat-field template automatically, based on
temporal proximity, or manually.
==================
OSA 7.0 -> OSA 8.0
==================
-----
General
-----
A bug was fixed in the attitude determination code in the case
where small tolerances were specified. Previously most of the
good time from a science window could be excluded in certain
cases. Now, with small tolerances, some science windows will
have much more stable attitude good time.
----
JEMX
----
OSA 8 introduces many improvements in the modeling of the JEM-X
instruments. A major improvement is the calibration of the
electronic efficiency of the two units, which has been introduced
in the analysis software. The geometrical effects introduced in
particular by the collimators are also much better
characterized. Energy calibration has also been improved by the
introduction of the detector temperature in the gain
determination. Finally, long-term trends in the detectors'
performance have been analyzed and taken into account in the
calibration. As a results, JEM-X analysis software in OSA 8 shows a
much reduced level of systematics, and a single response (RMF and
ARF) is valid for the whole mission.
Currently, these improvements (except the temperature-dependent
gain correction) have been included in the imaging software
only. Therefore the most reliable JEM-X fluxes are obtained in the
source result file. Previous spectral extraction has been removed
and replaced by a tool that simply reformats the fluxes from the
imaging step into a standard spectrum. In a future release, flux
extraction (either for spectra or light curves) will be performed
in separate using the same code as that used in the imaging
step. An additional huge advantage is that spectral extraction now
takes correctly into account the effect of multiple sources, which
was only possible with the spectral extraction from images in the
previous release. The new spectral extraction is the recommended
way to extract spectra.
As bins used for the imaging step are also used for spectral
extraction, we have devised a new, flexible way to generate spectra
with fine binning with the introduction of standard binning with
from 1 to 64 bins. The user can very simply request the use of
these standard binnings, or introduce new, arbitrary binnings. A
very convenient tool has also been added to allow the user to rebin
the response according to the user's specifications.
As in OSA 6 and OSA 7, sky images and mosaics can be used to
extract spectra of any source, whether detected or not. Images
benefit from the same improvements as flux determination, but, the
implementations being different, fluxes and uncertainties extracted
with both tools can differ slightly. The user need to be aware that
the ARFs are different for both spectral extraction methods. There
is also a single ARF for the spectral extraction from image for the
entire mission.
-----
IBIS
-----
Besides the corrections of a number of software problems without
much impact on the results the main improvement of OSA 8 concerns
thermal misalignment. The alignment of the IBIS optical axis vs
the startracker changes with the temperature of the instrument mask,
that is related to the solar aspect angle. The amplitude of the
effect is of the order of 1 arcmin for a variation of 30 degrees
in temperature. This wobble is important when cleaning ghosts and
determining the position centroid of bright sources. The correction
for this effect allows to use tighter attitude constraints than
in the past which is useful for fields containing very bright
sources (at the cost of some percents of data that will be
rejected on average).
---
SPI
---
With the release of OSA 8, another script is available for the
spectral extraction and the contemporary fit of diffuse emission:
spimodfit_analysis. This script performs all the steps of
spi_science_analysis except running spiros. Instead of this
program, the script calls spimodfit which has different approach in
the simultaneous fit of background, point sources, and diffuse
emission using the SPI data.
With respect to spiros, the main advantages are the inclusion of
diffuse emission, and a less interactive procedure, the main
drawback is the inability to produce images to detect sources in
the field of view.
==================
OSA 6.0 -> OSA 7.0
==================
-----
General
-----
This is the first release that is built and tested on 64 bit
linux and solaris systems. Please note though that the 64 bit
code is less well tested than the 32 bit code. One should have
no problem running the 32 bit versions on a 64 bit system.
-----
JEM-X
-----
This new release introduces important modifications to add robustness
in the source-detection process of the imaging step. Source detection
in j_ima_iros is now made in three optimized energy bands,
irrespectively of the choice of the energy bands made by the user.
This has the advantage of reducing the possibility of fake sources
being detected because of statistical fluctuations in the different
bands.
The detection of hot pixels in the data correction step has been
improved.
The mosaic program, j_ima_mosaic, is now able to combine any mosaic
created by itself, irrespective of the instrument. This allows in
particular to combine JEM-X 1 and JEM-X 2 mosaics of the same field in
order to benefit from the total exposure time on a particular region
to increase the depth of JEM-X observations.
A new tool has also been added to OSA in order to perform source
detection on any JEM-X image (Science-Window images or mosaics). This
tool, called j_ima_src_locator, has to be called outside of the JEM-X
scripts, since the imaging step already includes source detection.
Matching with a source catalogue can be made very easily with the same
tool as that used in the JEM-X script, q_identify_srcs.
-----
ISGRI
-----
The energy correction has changed drastically:
Event rise time and pulse height are corrected by 2 calibration
laws above and below 50 keV. The resulting positions of the
calibration lines are constant over the mission. The drift of the
energy calibration gain and offset with activation and time are now
much better calibrated at intermediate energies.
This results in more constant Crab light curve.
The dependence on switch on time is no more used. The correction
gains and offsets are corrected for the effect of total accumulated
dose. This correction is also applied on the low energy cutoff
value (low threshold per pixel).
A 3 dimensional look up table is used to compute energy from rise
time and pulse height as well as a random value that take into
account the non univocal nature of the pulse height/rise time to
energy conversion.
A default parameter concerning the detection of noisy pixels based
on timing characteristics was modified.
The default constrain on the attitude stability has been
tightened.
The dead-time correction has been improved to handle rare Telemetry
defects.
By default the background map normalisation is calculated using all
ISGRI modules. This gives better results if the list of bright
sources used in the background normalisation determination is not
accurate, i.e. the background subtraction is more robust.
A better modeling of the spider was achieved by a new attenuation
ic file.
Coordinates for the center of the mosaic are now by default
computed automatically.
The sumhist program can now be used to create background maps for
ISGRI.
A number of minor bugs have been corrected to improve robustness
and portability on 64 bit operating systems.
There are new calibration (ic) files for: Veto calibration
(calibrated over a longer time scale); Attenuation coefficient; 3D
look-up-table; Background maps, RMF, ARFs (updated for the new
energy calibration).
------
PICsIT
------
The main novelty of this release is the possibility to perform a
scientifically sound analysis of GRB detected in spectral timing
mode. As known, to save telemetry, PICsIT is set to work by
integrating onboard data into histograms. Data are simultaneously
stored in the spectral imaging data set (64x64 pixels, 256 energy
channels, 1 histogram per ScW) and in the spectral timing data set
(no spatial information, only 8 energy bands, but high time
resolution, from 1 to 500 ms). In every standard ScW, the user can
find data in both modes.
Spectral timing data have already given good results by detecting
dozens of GRB ([1]; see also Fig. 1), but only with the OSA7
release will be possible to have available the response matrices
(RMF/ARF) for this mode, prepared by P. Laurent (CEA/Saclay). We
refer the reader to the discussion in [2] for more details.
In addition, the executable for the lightcurve extraction from
spectral timing data has been improved to include an automatic
alert message in output when the rate is greater than a certain
value, which in turn can be set by the user.
Other improvements in OSA7 for IBIS/PICsIT concerns an update of
the mosaic tool (correction of source positioning) and of the
calculation of energy bands from HEPI-LUT for spectral imaging
data. Although OSA for PICsIT has a predefined set of energy band
(8 for single events and 8 for multiple events), it is possible
for the user to select his/her own set of energy bands. However,
the main problem is the preparation of a proper set of background
maps. OSA for PICsIT includes in IC files a set of maps for the 8
standard energy bands. If the user wants to change the energy
bands, he/she should also prepare a corresponding new set of
background maps.
References:
[1] IBIS/PICsIT Source Catalog,
http://www.iasfbo.inaf.it/Research/INTEGRAL/Catalogue/picsit_soucat.html
[2] G. Di Cocco et al., Proceedings of the VI INTEGRAL Workshop, to
be published (arxiv:0707.0573).
---
SPI
---
A third background modeling method has been introduced: background
templates. These templates which are part of the IC tree, are
based, e.g., on the GEDSAT rate. The templates can be selected from
the spi_science_analysis GUI (or the command-line) instead of the
flatfield or the background tracers. The templates are provided by
the SPI instrument team in Toulouse. The flatfield method, however,
remains the default method.
The second major change is the availability of a timing imaging
mode in spiros. This mode allows to construct images even when
strongly variable sources are in the field of view. Previous
versions of spiros could only construct light curves or spectra
when variable sources were present. With OSA7, also images can be
obtained.
The spi_science_analysis pipeline script has been updated and the
GUI adapted to accommodate the new features described above.
The third important addition is the inclusion of spimodfit.
Spimodfit is an alternative to spiros. It allows to derive
spectra for sources in the field of view and most importantly to
study the diffuse emission. Spectra obtained by spiros and
spimodfit are found to agree generally very well. Spimodift is not
yet included in the spi_science_analysis script, but is a stand
alone tool.
Apart from these major changes, all software has been updated and
improved. The IC files have also been updated, the bad pointing
filter now covers all revolutions up to Rev. 539.
The documentation has been updated and improved. The online user
manual can be found by clicking "Support" and "SPI analysis" from
the main ISDC page, or directly at
http://isdc.unige.ch/index.cgi?Support+spi
---
OMC
---
The new method introduced in OSA 6.0 to calculate the fluxes by
re-centering on the catalogued positions is now the default
(IMA_wcsFlag=yes). As a consequence, the OMC analysis uses by
default the OMC Input Catalogue. The location of the catalogue
must be passed to the scripts using the "ISDC_OMC_CAT" environment
variable.
==================
OSA 5.1 -> OSA 6.0
==================
-------
General
-------
You can trade disk space from memory in the case where running OSA
is taking too much memory. Recommendation: e.g. uncompress the
events files will help.
After OSA 6, there will be no future support for old Linux and
MacOS Panther.
-----
JEM-X
-----
* This new release introduces a much more robust gain calibration.
Improvements in the software reduced considerably the (already
small) number of revolutions which produced incorrect gain
corrections. The automatic calibration performed inside OSA still
fails for a few revolutions affected by numerous instrumental
problems. Those revolutions have been identified by Jem-X team, and
the gain calibration has been redetermined manually. These
calibration files are now included in OSA's Instrument
Characteristics tree. The analysis script determines by itself the
best gain correction to be applied. For future revolutions affected
by this problem which are not yet distributed in the IC files,
separate gain correction files can be obtained from the following
web page:
http://isdc.unige.ch/index.cgi?Support+jemx
* A table of bad time intervals is now included in OSA. For Jem-X,
it includes all the periods that should not be used for standard
scientific works, either because of hardware problems or because of
intentional modifications of the instrument configurations for the
purpose of testing and calibrations.
By default, these periods are automatically excluded from any
analysis with OSA.
* Several bug fixes and improvements have been performed in the
imaging tool. In particular, a significance map can now be produced
for individual Science Windows. In addition, the images are now
corrected in order to allow the extraction of fluxes, either from
the Science Window images or from the mosaics. A generic tool to
extract fluxes and spectra from INTEGRAL images is available in
OSA. The mosaic tool implements now a correct projection, which
removes the limitation on the angular size of the mosaic.
-----
ISGRI
-----
The main improvements of OSA 6 concerning ISGRI are as follow:
* The calculation of good time intervals takes better into account
pointings with several periods of stable attitude. More stringent
limits on the attitude stability are used by default in OSA 6.0,
which improves the cleaning of sources. In some rare cases of
telemetry gaps, the calculated GTI were not fully correct, this is
now fixed.
* A "bad time interval" table has been added in the IC tree and is
used by default by the analysis to disregard the corresponding
data. It points to periods of time during the mission affected by
peculiar instrument setting used during calibration, solar flares,
bad settings of rise time thresholds, problem with the IBIS VETO
configuration or passage through the radiation belts.
* A non accurate calculation of the dead time in case of very
strong background has been corrected.
* Selection of events based on rise time is now performed on
corrected values.
* Background subtraction involves the normalization of background
maps. This normalisation now disregards pixels illuminated by very
bright sources, which improves significantly the results especially
when bright sources are on the border of the FOV. The normalisation
of the background maps is also performed independently for each
module. All this improves the quality of the science products. In
particular lightcurves of Crab are now much more stable.
* The mask supporting structure (including the NOMEX honeycomb
structure) is absorbing the photons before they hit the detector.
This absorption depends on the incident angle of the photon and of
its energy. A numerical model of this structure has been created
and adjusted to flight and ground calibration data. The
images/spectra/count rates are now corrected for the effect of this
structure. The resulting corrected count rates are increased by a
factor up to 3 at low energy. The instrument response
included a correction for the average absorption of the mask
supporting structure that has now been removed. This correction
improves the accuracy of the count rate determination (at various
off-axis angles), in particular the stability of the Crab
lightcurve.
------
PICsIT
------
* The main difference in OSA 6.0 with respect to OSA 5.1 is the
presence of an "off-axis" correction in ip_skyimage. This
correction is calculated according to the off-axis PSF studies and
therefore it takes into account several effects that can generate
distortions in the PSF. This correction is something temporary,
while detailed studies are on going in order to disentangle the
different contributions and to correct them separately.
* Another news is the release of new RMF/ARF for single and
multiple events with a proper channel width, in agreement with
onboard HEPI-LUT.
---
SPI
---
* A new background modelling method has been introduced: instead of
using background tracers, SPI flatfields are now part of the SPI
IC-tree which are used to model the background. In depth analysis
by the SPI team showed that this method is superior to other
background estimation methods and is therefore the new default
method.
* The input data are now screened and bad pointings are
automatically removed from the analysis. This is done by an IC file
that contains all bad pointings. This IC file is provided and
maintained by the SPI team.
* It is now possible to perform phase resolved spectroscopy with SPI,
even down to milli seconds (i.e. the Crab) and including double
star correction for binary systems. The number of bins and binsize
can be defined by the user. The ephemeris is taken from a file the
user has to provide that contain valid pulse periods (and
derivatives) valid for the observation.
* The SPI response binner has been improved and the slope of SPI
spectra no longer depends on the number of bins or the binsize. It
is now also possible to use very narrow and very broad bins
together without problem.
* The spi_science_analysis pipeline script has been updated to
accommodate the new features described above and the GUI has been
slightly redesigned to improve the usability.
* Several small bugs in the image reconstruction program spiros
(version 9.2.1) have been corrected. Otherwise, the functionality
remains the same as in OSA 5.1.
* The documentation has been updated and improved. The UM has been
re-worked heavily, and the SPI data analysis WWW site includes a
full user oriented documentation tree. This page can be found by
clicking "Support" and "SPI analysis" from the main ISDC page, or
directly at
http://isdc.unige.ch/index.cgi?Support+spi
Scientific validation of the SPI data analysis system is going on
at the ISDC and in different instrument team sites.
---
OMC
---
* A new method to calculate the fluxes by re-centring on WCS
positions has been implemented. The new method reads the
coordinates from the OMC Input Catalogue, and is able to calculate
the fluxes by re-centring on the catalogued position, after
deriving the WCS solution. One advantage of this method is that it
can process the mosaics of sub-windows successfully if the source
coordinates are accurate enough. It also allows to re-process old
data when more accurate positions are available for re-centring.
* The WCS solution has been improved in those shots without
reference stars. In such cases, the solution obtained for the last
shot with reference stars available is used.
* Now the user can specify the OMC_ID/s of the source/s he/she is
interested in, to extract the fluxes only for the given source/s.
In OSA 5.1, this was only possible in the imaging tool
(o_ima_build).
* The IC files have been substantially improved. Using data from
the Earth observation, a new calibration method was developed, and
it allowed to derive new flatfield matrices covering almost all the
mission. The photometric calibration was updated as well.
==================
OSA 5.0 -> OSA 5.1
==================
-------
General
-------
The main windows of the Graphical User Interfaces have been
improved for all the instruments to easily handle the parameter
files of the analysis scripts. They now contain:
- a "Save As" button to create a file containing a command-line
with the parameters currently set in the GUI.
- a "Load" button to read and load parameters from a file
previously saved from the GUI
- a "Reset" button to reset all the parameters to their default
values (as defined in the $ISDC_ENV/pfiles)
-----
ISGRI
-----
The main changes concerned the ii_shadow_build module which creates
shadowgrams of ISGRI events.
* A problem in the spectral detection of noisy pixels performed in
ii_shadow_build has been corrected. These problems had the effect
of rejecting, from the analysis, good pixels in special conditions
where very bright sources were present in the partially coded
field of view.
* ii_shadow_build has been also improved to handle the case of
missing contexts, to correctly use the GTI per module and to employ
the HK3 data when needed.
* A problem in the handling of module switches has also been fixed.
This problem was noticed in OSA 5.0 in the sense that module
switches were not taken into account properly. This impacts
approximately 30% of the Science Windows.
Besides these ii_shadow_build changes, it is now possible to
combine ISGRI spectra with spe_pick even if the spectra require
different ARFs. For the moment, there is still only one ARF, but we
expect to release soon three ISGRI ARFs, valid for different
periods of time. The new version of spe_pick handles transparently
any number of ISGRI ARFs, and produces spectra that can be read
immediately with both xspec11 and xspec12.
Other minor or cosmetic changes were made in several other s/w
modules.
------
PICsIT
------
The OSA 5.1 release for PICsIT includes the fix of a bug in the WCS
settings for skyimages, that caused a problem in source positions
in mosaics (although there was not this problem in doing mosaics
with ScW images from OSA 5 and HEASARC varmosaic tool).
A new version of the PIF for spectra extraction has been
implemented, although the algorithm is still unstable (see PICsIT
known issues).
-----
JEM-X
-----
The gain fitting and correction module j_cor_gain has been upgraded
to version 6.4 and marks a giant leap forward for gain
determination in those few revolutions where gain smoothing has
previously failed. These have mostly been confined to Crab
calibration revolutions, but a handful of revolutions where there
were multiple unscheduled switch-offs of the unit were also
previously difficult to analyse.
Along with the gain aging factors introduced in OSA 5.0, we can now
be certain of gain corrections being correct to better than 3%. To
see how well gain smoothing and correction has been applied to a
particular revolution see the new JEM-X gain results:
http://outer.space.dtu.dk/users/oxborrow/sdast/GAINresults.html
Currently this page is under construction, but within a few weeks
you should be able to see how gain smoothing of the calibration
spectra has proceeded and where the resultant Xenon, Molybdenum and
Copper lines from the instrument background are found in the
processed science data. These results are made with the software
contained in OSA 5.1, and represent the current state-of-the-art in
JEM-X energy determination.
Anyone with questions or problems pertaining to JEM-X energy
corrections and spectra should contact Carol Anne Oxborrow at
oxborrow@dnsc.dk
No change in j_ima_iros.
No change in source extraction (for spectra and lightcurves) except
a bug fix.
j_ima_mosaic-5.1.0 has been included.
The previous version of j_ima_mosaic (5.0.4) needed that at least
intensity maps of type RAW_RECT were always produced by j_ima_iros,
even if the user actually wished to only combine intensity maps of
type RES+SRC.
It is now possible with the new version to only (though it is
obvious that VARIANCE maps are a requisite to produce weighted
mosaic maps) produce at the IMA level RES+SRC maps if one wants to
make mosaics of RES+SRC maps.
Because of a patch of gti_data_gaps, it is now possible to analyse
Scws containing restricted imaging data. Nevertheless, the events
gap GTI might be overestimated.
==================
OSA 4.2 -> OSA 5.0
==================
Please make sure that the ftools Package (http://ftools.gsfc.nasa.gov)
release you use is 5.3 or newer. At ISDC, we have used ftools 5.3.1
for our testing. Inital tests with HEADAS 6.0 show that all works
except that Xspec 12 does not read beyond the first spectral extension.
The Xspec team at Goddard will issue a patch soon to fix this.
-----
ISGRI
-----
The ISGRI analysis software has been improved in almost all areas.
Besides bug fixes, the main improvements are:
1) ISGRI pixels regularly become noisy. Noisy pixels are detected
on board and the transmission of affected events is stopped
automatically until the pixel comes back to a normal state.
A small fraction of affected events are however transmitted
and they could have a dramatic effect on the image quality if
not properly flagged. Two new algorithms have been implemented.
The first and most powerful one flags event as soon as the statistic
of the time difference between event time of an individual pixel is
not as expected. On average few hundred pixels are killed every
pointings which improve dramatically the image and count rate
reconstruction.
The second algorithm flags event that come from pixel with abnormal
event spectral distribution. This kills few hundred pixels in addition
and mainly improves the source spectra.
Only few percent of the detector pixels are affected, which does
not change significantly the instrument sensitivity. As a result,
the count rate of a bright source is now stable within 3% (deviations
up to 20% were not unusual with OSA 4.2).
2) The OSA 4.2 dead time correction was affected by a possible on-board
counter overflow in case of very bright source or background
conditions. This is now correctly taken into account.
3) The off-axis correction and background maps were not properly
interpolated with energy, which could generate artificial spectral
features. These interpolations are now performed by a new executable
weighting and interpolating the maps taking the ARF and average
source spectral shape into account.
4) The ISGRI energy calibration is a convolution of the rise-time
correction (LUT1), of the electronic calibration (LUT2) and of
the gain calibration.
The gain calibration takes now into account temperature effects
and the degradation of the detector with time and after solar
flares. This has been calibrated within 1%.
5) The on-board pixel low energy thresholds have been decreased by about
2 keV. The analysis software has been modified to take the values of
those low energy threshold better into account. The on-board
modification and the improvement of the software together increases the
low energy count rate of the instrument by a factor of 5 between 13 and
22 keV.
6) A new and better LUT2 has been derived using ground calibration data.
A validated RMF taking the new LUT2 into account is however not yet
available so the new LUT2 was not included in OSA5. However, the ARF
was modified to provide a reasonable response down to 17 keV and to
take into account all the OSA5 software improvements affecting the
source count spectra. 1% systematic errors should be taken into
account when fitting spectra.
7) In rare cases the pointing attitude determination was not properly
taking into account the good time interval. This is fixed.
8) The image cleaning has been improved very significantly and several
options have been added to fix known source positions to improve ghost
cleaning, to force cleaning of faint sources even if found negative.
9) Spectral and lightcurve extraction benefits now from a new fitting
procedure that works much better for faint sources and removes the
significant hard tails that were found with previous versions of
the software.
10)New background maps have been built from empty fields. As these are
defined in narrow energy bands, they could be used for spectral
extraction.
Besides this, the analysis script parameters and graphical user
interface were improved. Several improvements important for bright
sources are still being worked out and could not be included in the
current OSA release. Those should be made available later this
summer in the form of new calibration files:
a) The new LUT2 and associated RMF and time dependent ARF.
b) An off-axis correction depending on azimutal angle derived
from a ray tracing model.
Preliminary version of those files are available at the ISDC.
------
PICsIT
------
PICsIT has been almost completely revised for the release of OSA 5.0. Some
bugs have been fixed in order to have a more robust pipeline (e.g.
overflow error in lightcurves), while some user requests have been met,
like the use of a variance shadowgram not corrected for background.
Indeed, in the previous releases of OSA, the shadowgram of the variance
was updated for the background subtraction after its creation. This meant
that the significance in output from OSA was already corrected for
systematic effects (or, at least, for most of them) of background. With
OSA 5.0, it is possible to select the corrected variance or the raw
variance: in the latter case, the significance map is not corrected and
therefore it is necessary to analyse the S/N distribution in the pixels in
order to evaluate the background level.
OSA 5.0 also provides 5 new sets of background maps prepared by Piotr
Lubinski (ISDC) based on public data of different epochs. The default set
of maps used in OSA 5.0 remains the set with 1.7 Ms of exposure built
using revolutions 49 to 67, but the user will have more maps amongst the
IC files with which to try different background subtractions.
A prototype of the point sources spectra extraction module, based on PIF
(Pixel Illumination Factor), is also available. It should be used with
extreme care since PICsIT does not always have sufficient counts in a
single Scw when compared to the background (we remind you that the Crab
rate is about 10c/s in comparison with a background rate of ~2500 c/s over
all the detector). It is worth mentioning that it is possible to extract
the spectrum from the imaging results (a script by M. Chernyakova is
available in the contributed scripts page).
Last, but not least, the spectral timing mode settings have been updated
with the change of the energy boundaries of the channels. The number of
channels is still 4, with time resolution of 4 ms, but the boundaries have
been changed to: 260-364, 364-676, 676-1196, 1196-2600 keV. These new
settings are useful in high energy GRB studies since PICsIT is presently
the only in-orbit instrument able to explore the MeV range.
---
SPI
---
A new version of the image reconstruction program spiros (version 9.2)
has been developed. This key element of the ISDC SPI analysis system
offers additional functionalities in "timing" mode, while the
"imaging" and "spectral" modes are basically unchanged.
The spi_science_analysis pipeline script has been fully
redesigned. The "alternative" part was removed and the interface
simplified. It is now much easier to launch the script without Graphic
User Interface, either from command-line analyses, or from scripts.
A new script spi_grb_analysis, including two new executables, has
been developed to ease analyses of Gamma-ray bursts. This script calls
many times the spi_science_analysis script. The main parameters are
the start and the stop of the GRB, either in UT or in IJD, and they
are entered as command-line arguments.
A new set of Instrument Response Functions (IRFs) is part of the
package. It include three independent responses for before, between,
and after the detector 2 and 17 failures. The responses have been
fully recomputed after the discovery that a part of the JEMX mask was
not properly modeled in the GEANT simulations. This problem was
affecting however only analysis of sources with very large offset
angles towards the JEMX instruments.
A large effort has been made to improve the documentation. The UM has
been re-worked heavily, and the SPI data analysis WWW site has been
redesigned. It now includes a full user oriented documentation tree.
This page can be found by clicking "Support" and "SPI analysis" from
the main ISDC page, or directly at
http://isdc.unige.ch/index.cgi?Support+spi
Scientific validation of the SPI data analysis system is going on at
the ISDC and in different instrument team sites. A paper dedicated to
the evaluation of the performance of point-source data analysis has
been published in MNRAS and is available from our documentation tree.
-----
JEM-X
-----
The imaging software has been completely reworked. The set of three
components for image making, source finding and intensity
correction has been replaced by a single component:
j_ima_iros. This produces better images and makes much better
estimates of the source fluxes. As the name suggests,
an IROS mechanism is used for better fluxes and improved
sensitivity. Also a much more detailed description of the detector
behavior, mask support structure and collimator geometry has been
included.
A completely new component is the mosaicking tool, j_ima_mosaic,
especially adapted to the JEM-X images from j_ima_iros. It replaces the
ISDC tool, image_mosaic, that did not make the best of the JEM-X images.
The spectrum and light-curve extraction have also been updated with
a more precise detector modelling and collimator description. It is
now also possible to get a PIF (Pixel Illumination Function) by
setting a parameter.
The gain correction algorithm has been updated to cope with
the higher frequency of the so-called 'glitches' - sudden drops in
gain under the calibration sources that take up to half an hour
to restabilize.
It has been noticed that, due to the heavy irradiation of the small
parts of the detector under the calibration source, the gain development
is a little different from the rest of the detector which leads to an
apparent 'drift' of the Xe fluorescence line in energy with time.
This has been included in the corrections to a first order.
A side-effect of the introduction of j_ima_iros is the requirement for two
large (400 MB) IC files. The backprojection lists (BPL, one for
each instrument:
jmx1_bpl_grp_0001.fits and jmx2_bpl_grp_0001.fits) represent the
"Aperture Response Function" i.e. the description of the transparency
between each pair of detector pixel and sky pixel.
---
OMC
---
Celestial coordinates (RA_FIN and DEC_FIN) of all observed sources
are now calculated in o_src_get_fluxes, by fitting the best astrometric
solution to the faint photometric reference stars. A new solution is
computed for each effective integration. This allows to correct the
inaccuracy due to the thermoelastic deformations, which affect the
alignment of the OMC optical axis with the S/C attitude reference.
The imaging tool (o_ima_build) has been substantially updated to
improve the WCS support as well as to make it more user friendly
by adding new parameters. Now the user can specify the minimum and
maximum values for the shot integration time, as well as the OMC_ID
of the source he/she is interested in. If a given source is selected,
small images are built containing only the OMC sub-window/s corresponding
to the selected source.
Thanks to the improvement achieved in the astrometric solution, a
new OMC misalignment matrix has been calculated. By using it, the
accuracy of the computed celestial coordinates and the WCS support
is better than 2 arcsec in most cases.
The scripts have been also updated to include new parameters and make
them more user friendly. Optionally, now the user can run the scripts
to build only the images.
==================
OSA 4.1 -> OSA 4.2
==================
-----
ISGRI
-----
* In ii_shadow_ubc 2.9.2, there is a change in the way the
efficiency and background corrections are performed.
* ii_skyimage 3.9
As the efficiency correction is done now in ii_shadow_ubc, it is
not redone in ii_skyimage. Consequently, it is important not to
mix versions of ii_skyimage and ii_shadow_ubc from old releases
(before OSA 4.2) and this new one.
You cannot use old binned shadowgrams with the new ii_skyimage.
It is now possible to fix all source positions in the individual
Scw fit.
The covariance matrix is corrected by off-axis effect.
The mean is no more subtracted in the SNR images.
* ibis_science_analysis was improved as regards user-friendliness.
It can use more than 10 energy bands for imaging (see the
updated cookbook in the ISGRI User Manual)
------
PICsIT
------
* The main change in the PICsIT s/w is that the count rates were
changed and are now higher (~30%) with respect to the OSA 4.1 or
older versions.
This was required to match the MC model used to build the
RMF/ARF.
* Mosaic should work now for long integration and there is the
possibility to make mosaics for polar regions with two more
projections (zenithal equidistant ARC and stereographic STG) in
addition to the gnomonic (TAN) already present in older versions.
---
SPI
---
New versions for several components were produced:
- a bug was removed in spi_clean,
- spi_gain_corr and spi_scripts were modified to cope with new
ISDC directory structure and data format.
No new functionality is available in OSA 4.2.
-----
JEM-X
-----
* The Instrument Model data now contains calibration information
to support regularized pixel positions.
* New background models have been delivered, but their use is still
tentative.
* Deadtime calculations now also handle the non-nominal case of
both 16MHz and 8MHz CPU speed settings mixed in the same science
window.
* By default, shadowgrams are now produced in normal coordinates
with regularized pixel positions.
* For spectra and lightcurve extraction, the modelling of the
of flux distribution on the detector has been improved and
the idealization of a flat background given up.
* Because of the limitations of the mosaic tool, image mosaics
are currently not produced by the analysis scripts. It is still
possible to do this manually.
* The analysis scripts handle both old and new style of the
directory structure.
---
OMC
---
* Templates and executables have been updated to record more
information in the source results tables. As specific examples,
the derived magnitude is now given for the different possible
extraction sizes (1 pixel, 3*3 or 5*5 pixels).
* In case of (GRB) Trigger Mode data present in a Science Window,
the scripts will automatically create images. The scripts now
also include an optional step (IMA2) to create a summary results
table.
==================
OSA 4.0 -> OSA 4.1
==================
----
IBIS
----
* An important bug in the GTI calculation is fixed. The cookbook
example of the crab light curve now shows a constant curve.
The big dip in the crab light curve generated with previous
software was due to this bug.
* A bug is fixed in the script that was preventing to run the CAT_S
alone.
* A bug is fixed in the energy band choice of ii_pif_build when
attempting NOMEX correction with ii_light. The example in the
cookbook now works correctly.
* lc_pick now works for ISGRI.
* lc_pick now understands standard source name besides SOURCEID.
---
SPI
---
A major bug in spi_science_analysis was fixed. Now the SPI analysis
works properly on Linux platforms.
---
OMC
---
* A new algorithm to compute the background based on the 11x11 exterior
rim has been included.
* The fluxes are now computed by a sub-sampling method and aperture
corrections are applied by integrating the PSF.
* A method to compute the centroid and the PSF width has been developed.
* Several of the "un-detected" saturations can be now detected by
comparing with the expected PSF.
* New flags indicate the presence of source contamination.
==================
OSA 3.0 -> OSA 4.0
==================
Starting with OSA 4, you may choose between two different
mathematical libraries:
- NAG, the mathematical library from the Numerical Algrithms
Group
- isdcmath, a compilation of public domain routines
-----
ISGRI
-----
* The energy correction has been improved, taking into account the
effect of the bias voltage and the effect of a global temperature.
Temperature gradient correction will be implemented later.
The shift in gain is now taken into account. The gain-corrected value of
risetime is written in the column ISGRI_PI.
* Binning and background correction have been improved. The
problem linked to uniformity image is corrected. The time keywords
have now the OGIP standard meaning: ONTIME is the sum of the GTI,
EXPOSURE = ONTIME*Average(Effi). Note that the images and spectra
are computed in counts/sec and ONTIME value is the reference value
for flux and spectrum evaluation.
* Several bugs and problems of image reconstruction and spectral
extraction modules are now corrected.
* The "NOMEX effect" is now described in a new instrument
characteristic file and corrected for in ii_skyimage and
ii_spectra_extract. The NOMEX is a honeycomb support structure behind
the mask absorbing low energy photons. Its geometry makes the absorption
very dependent on the source position in the FOV and on energy.
* Spectral extraction can now be performed using least square fit,
which is now the default method. Background correction maps for spectral
extraction are now available and they are the default input.
* A new executable to extract light curves has been added, but the
NOMEX effect removal is not fully implemented, yet.
* Spectra can also be extracted based on a PIF (Pixel Illumination
Factor) method but without NOMEX effect correction. In general, the
ability to have event lists with stand-alone PIF building now allows
different kinds of analysis using just standards FTOOLS.
* A new ARF file corrects for the "snake effect" seen in reconstructed
spectra with the present RMF (i.e. the fact that powerlaw spectra appear
as having wiggles instead of being straight).
------
PICsIT
------
* An early version of an improved set of background maps is now
available. This gives cleaner images with higher signal-to-noise ratio.
* A PICsIT specific mosaic executable is now available directly in
the pipeline.
* It is possible to obtain PICsIT lightcurves of the whole detector
by means of the spectral timing data. This submode generates lightcurves
in four energy bands with time resolution of 2 s and could be useful in
the study of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB). "
---
SPI
---
* A completely new spi_science_analysis script has been developed
including a new GUI. The user can select one of two "pipelines", a
"default" and an "alternative" one. The "default" pipeline makes use
of software developed by Jurgen Knodelseder (see the proceedings of
the 5th INTEGRAL conference in Munich) for event binning and
background modeling. These programmes run much faster than their
counterparts from OSA3, which are still available in the "alternative"
pipeline.
This new script is more user friendly. It does a number of tasks
automatically, such as saving the exact list of used parameters and
the logging information in dedicated files. The number of input
parameters has been reduced and they are well documented through the
GUI. The given default values can always be easily overwritten when
required.
* A new program (spi_add_sim) has been added, allowing to add a
simulated source to the actual observation. This tool is useful to
evaluate the possible effects of crowding in relatively realistic
conditions (see Dubath et al. 2004, A&A submitted for more details).
* A new system of gain coefficient files handling is also available
as part of the new script. The gain coefficient files derived now for
each revolution in the standard ISDC processing are used by default.
If they are not available the IC files are used instead. And as
before, users can impose their own calibration index file through a
normally hidden parameter.
* A new response provided by the Goddard group is included,
describing SPI after the failure of detector #2. The analysis system
will select automatically the appropriate response (with or without
detector 2), although the system cannot currently handle two different
responses at the same time (neither a time variable response). When
mixing data prior to and after detector 2 failure, users have to
select one of the two responses. The differences in the derived
results with the two responses are very small (and negligible) in most
cases. Users can check their results by repeating their analysis
twice, once with each of the responses, or analyze their data before
and after the failure independently with the appropriate response.
-----
JEM-X
-----
* Gain corrections have been significantly improved.
They now handle non-standard cases better, like, e.g.,
a shut-off and restart of the instrument during an
Integral revolution.
* More realistic background models have been generated but their
use is still non-standard and only meant for evaluation purposes.
* The imaging tools now also provide variance maps together with the
sky images.
* The source spectrum and lightcurve software has been significantly
updated.
* Binned detector lightucurves and spectra are now also normalized
to a default detector area of 100 cm2.
---
OMC
---
* The flux extraction algorithm has been slightly refined and
some more critical cases for the automatic extraction are now recognized
and flagged in the results table. This includes the detection of
extended sources generating several OMC sub-windows.
* Two new parameters allow the user to include only shots falling
within a given integration time range in order to avoid data without
relevant signal or with saturated pixels.
* The images produced by the offline tool o_ima_build are now
tagged with WCS information and use the pixel coordinate system of the
telemetry.
* The table of results produced by o_src_collect includes now the
barycentric time.
-------------
Generic tools
-------------
* The barycentric correction tool "barycent" was corrected and largely
improved in functionality.
* evts_pick can now merge SPI events.
==================
OSA 2.0 -> OSA 3.0
==================
We recommend that you have HEAsoft 5.3 (ftools) installed.
Earlier versions are also fine, except that the tool rbnrmf
only works for ISGRI as of 5.3
-------------
Generic tools
-------------
Barycentrization now gives sensible results.
evts_extract was improved and now also creates the GTI extension
required by several FTOOLs.
The handling of missing data was improved in spe_pick and a bug
in handling larger datasets removed. Note that spe_pick does not
handle IBIS data yet.
The performance of idx_find was largely improved.
og_create now checks if the given input exists before undertaking
any action.
-----
ISGRI
-----
Many components (ii_spectra_extract, ii_skyimage...) and the ibis_script
were updated.
You can now stop and resume before the mosaic.
Dead time calculation was improved for ISGRI.
Energy correction is now temperature dependent.
Changes in dal3ibis now allow to find small telemetry gaps inside a
packet and they are used all over the software.
The new executable ii_pif_build enables to create a PIF from a
spacecraft position and a source position.
New IC files were delivered since OSA 2.0 and energy correction was
significantly improved in OSA3.0.
IC-category OSA2 OSA3
-----------------------------------------
ISGR_ARF_RSP 3 4 ARF is now much better, correspond also
to change in the energy correction
ISGR_RMF_GRP 5 9,10 9 is the new original full resolution matrix,
10 is our suggestion for smart rebinning
and is the default in the script
ISGR_ATTN_MOD 1 2 A bug was fixed
ISGR_BACK_BKG 2 3 This is the first non dummy one
ISGR_COVR_MOD 1 2 changed because ii_skyimage has changed
ISGR_OFFS_MOD 1 3 new energy correction strategy
ISGR_RISE_MOD 1 3 new energy correction strategy
ISGR_TEMP_MOD - 1 Energy correction now is temperature dependent
------
PICsIT
------
An automatic source location is now performed.
ip_st_lc_extract was updated to take into account some compatibility
problems with XRONOS package of HEASARC.
---
SPI
---
The spi_science_analysis pipeline script, and the different
programs called by the script, offer the same functionalities as in
the last release 2.0 (although a number of software bugs have been
corrected for). A new alternative script is in development and will
be announced soon.
The new Instrument Response Function (IRF) is part of the package,
as well as the latest RMFs required to fit with XSPEC the spectra
extracted with spiros in the spi_science_analysis processing.
-----
JEM-X
-----
Consistency of results across operating systems has been improved,
mainly by using and OS (Operating System) independent randomizer in
the gain correction step, when events are assigned to PI bins.
Realistic background model data have been included in the IC files
and background model information pertinent to the individual
Science Windows is now routinely extracted. The use of these data
in the further steps, though, is still in an exploratory stage and
further fine tuning will be needed.
Shadowgrams can now also be background subtracted, but at this
stage this is not recommended for routine analysis and disabled as
default.
Source searching can be limited to a user defined angle to avoid
spurious source detections in the noisy outer rim of the field.
In addition, for forced source detections via a User Catalog, the
software can be instructed to always use the catalog coordinates
even if the source is independently found.
A new, more refined algorithm is used by default in source spectrum
and lightcurve extraction. Also, events flagged as problematic due
to their position in the detector, e.g. from a dead anode zone, or
their gain corrections are now by default excluded.
The flux values for source lightcurves and spectra are now
normalized by default to counts/second/100cm2 in each band. This
nominal detector area corresponds approximately to the geometrical
detector area of 490 cm2 multiplied by the mask open fraction
(0.24) and the collimator open fraction (0.89). Other
normalizations can be selected via parameters.
The effective area response (ARF) is now corrected for radius
selection and for dead detector zones.
Compatibility with the OGIP FITS time standards has been improved
for source lightcurves.
Binned detector spectra and lightcurves now also allow for radius
and event quality selection, where possible.
The analysis scripts can now be installed and run without ROOT,
foregoing the GUI support.
If users define a start time and time step for the analysis, the
start time will be set individually for each science window but
always aligned with the original start time by multiples of the
time step.
---
OMC
---
New, improved calibration files for flatfielding and flux to
magnitude conversion have been derived and included in the IC
data set. With these new files photometric accuracy is about
2-3% in the central 4x4 degrees of the OMC FOV, opposed to
variations of up to 15% before, caused by contamination problems
during the calibration.
A redundant dependency on planning data in the analysis
executables which gave rise to occasional problems has been
removed.
==================
OSA 1.1 -> OSA 2.0
==================
Besides various bugfixes for all the instruments, the OSA 2.0 release
mainly intends to allow users to run ISGRI spectral extraction.
While it has been technically tested, some scientific evaluation
is still on-going and spectral extraction results have to be
cautiously analyzed.
----
IBIS
----
Some bugs were fixed in ii_shadow_build, ii_shadow_ubc, ii_skyimage
and in the overall script.
Consequently, ii_shadow_build should not crash anymore,
and bright source pixels should not be mistaken as noisy
pixels anymore.
Improvements were also performed in ii_skyimage.
The Graphical User Interface now works.
A new executable (ii_light) has been integrated in ibis_scripts.
It allows to produce lightcurves.
There are a new RMF and a new ARF for ISGRI.
While spectral extraction can be run, it has not been scie
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