Workshop Preparation

If you are planning on attending an upcoming workshop, please read the following preparation suggestions. It is especially important to note the information on working with your own data.

CIAO/Chandra Data questions

If you have already worked with CIAO and/or Chandra data and have questions you would like to ask, we suggest to send them in advance to cxchelp@head-cfa.harvard.edu. We will make sure that an answer is ready for you at the time of the workshop.

Suggested pre-workshop reading

You can find introductory (and detailed) information about the Chandra mission in the latest version of the Chandra Proposer's Observatory Guide (POG).

If you have CIAO already installed at your home institution we also suggest reading and/or trying some of the introductory threads found on the Introductory Threads page.

**IMPORTANT** Working on your own Chandra data:

Some of you have asked to analyze your own Chandra data during the hands-on session. Given the potential proprietary nature of data, participants who wish to analyze their own should be aware of the following conditions:

1. we will download the requested ObsID from the archive beforehand and put them in a working area accessible to workshop participants. We cannot have data brought on tapes or CDs on the day of the workshop, since this would be too time consuming.
2. data may have to be shared with another participant given that pairs of people are working at the computer during the hands-on session. If the working partner wishes to work on a different ObsID, some rotation will be decided by the pairs.
3. it is the responsibility of the participants to ftp back to their home institutions any resulting data products they wish to keep: we cannot offer the service of backing data products up.

If you wish to work on proprietary Chandra data:

The PI of the observation needs to send an e-mail to cxchelp@head-cfa.harvard.edu to confirm:

1. that you agree on these conditions
2. the ObsID you would like to be downloaded from the archive.

If you decide to not use your own dataset, there will be of course sample data to analyze for various instrument configurations.