CIAO Documents

CIAO offers several ways to learn about the system. The most straightforward is probably to follow one of the science data analysis threads that lead you through the most common types of Chandra data analysis, whether imaging or grating spectroscopy. Some of the analysis described in threads have been automated into scripts which are available from the script download page.

As there are now a large number of threads available (over 100) we have added a set of Analysis Guides to provide an overview of the important threads for particular analysis topics.

The science threads are generally mechanical in nature, in that they may say what to do but not why you should do it. There is a set of "Why" topics to explain these issues. New topics are added on a regular basis.

Some applications are more complex than a few simple threads can do justice to. For these, we have written manuals. Sherpa in particular is a very powerful and flexible modelling and fitting engine. Technical talks and presentations describing the CIAO software can be found on the Publications page. Also, the Chandra/CIAO workshop presentations may be useful to users. PS and PDF files are available for the all the presentations made at the workshops.

For information regarding calibration, and how CIAO uses the calibration information, visit the CALDB and Chandra Calibration pages.

If you don't know what some of our arcane terminology means, try looking it up in the Chandra/CIAO dictionary. Or for help on a particular tool use the Ahelp page system.

You are probably not the first person to find some aspect of CIAO confusing at first. We are working to eliminate this confusion, but in the meantime we have a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ).

All software systems have bugs and CIAO is not an exception. Rather than delay release of the system until it has no bugs, we choose to put out an imperfect system and document the bugs we know about in a bug list.

All of this on-line documentation is being updated continually - with changes being announced regularly to the Chandra Users' email list - and we welcome your inputs. Please email the CXC Helpdesk with your questions, comments, and suggestions for improving our documentation.