********************************************************************************
             |                                            |
             |              CCC  XX   XX    OOO           |
Chandra      |             CC     XX XX    OO OO          | CXC
Electronic   |            CC       XXX    OO   OO         | Number 58
Bulletin     |             CC     XX XX    OO OO          | January
             |              CCC  XX   XX    OOO           | 2007
             |                                            |
********************************************************************************

Welcome to the Chandra X-ray Center's Electronic News Bulletin Number 58.

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.  CIAO 3.4.1 and CIAO 3.4.1.1 Patch Releases for Mac OSX Users

2.  ACIS Cosmic Ray-induced Dead Area calibration added to CIAO 3.4 and CalDB
   3.3.0


3.  Successful EPO Proposals and New EPO Product

4.  Meeting Announcement

5.  X-ray Grating Spectroscopy Workshop 

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

Item 1. CIAO 3.4.1 and CIAO 3.4.1.1 Patch Releases for Mac OSX Users
====================================================================
 

The Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) is pleased to announce that patch 
versions 3.4.1 and 3.4.1.1 of CIAO ("Chandra Interactive Analysis of 
Observations") is available for download from 
http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/ .

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

These releases are *only* of interest to users running CIAO on Mac OSX 
10.4 PowerPc and Mac OSX 10.4 Intel. A CIAO 3.4 installation needs to be 
present.

The CIAO 3.4.1 patch fixes problems running the applications Prism and 
Filtwin on Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) on PowerPC.  This patch has no effect 
when installed in Mac OS 10.2 or 10.3 on PowerPC. The patch file 
upgrades CIAO 3.4 to CIAO 3.4.1.

The CIAO 3.4.1.1 patch makes it possible to run all tools and applications (e.g. 
Sherpa and ChIPS) on Mac OSX 10.4 (Tiger) on Intel. Intel Mac users do 
not need to install the CIAO 3.4.1 patch; the CIAO 3.4.1.1 patch file is 
a direct upgrade to CIAO 3.4.

The CIAO software for Intel runs under Apple's Rosetta software, the PPC 
emulator software, which is included in Mac OS X for Intel machines. A native 
Intel build of CIAO will be released in the course of 2007.

For complete information on this release, including some performance 
test results of running CIAO on Intel Mac under Rosetta, please see the 
full Release Notes (http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/releasenotes/).

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

As always please send questions and requests for enhancements to the CXC
HELPDESK (http://cxc.harvard.edu/helpdesk/)

CIAO 3.4.X 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)
                                                                   

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

Item 2.  ACIS Cosmic Ray-induced Dead Area calibration added to CIAO 3.4 
         and CalDB 3.3.0
========================================================================


The cosmic ray flux incident on ACIS reduces the usable area in a
probabilistic fashion dependent upon the time a pixel is exposed to
cosmic rays during readout. Since that time depends on the clocking
parameters and upon parallel read row, it cannot be treated as a scalar
factor on the QE or on the effective exposure time. In effect, it is
properly a position-dependent exposure time correction factor. 

The new calibration is available in CIAO 3.4, but is NOT TURNED ON by 
default in the software. For information on how to apply the cosmic 
ray dead-area correction to your ACIS data analysis, and for technical 
details, see the CXC WHY page:

http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao3.4/why/acisdeadarea.html

CXC CIAO Documentation Team and the Chandra CalDB Manager

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

Item 3.  Successful EPO Proposals and New EPO Product
=====================================================

Summaries of successful proposals from the Cycle 8 EPO
peer review have been posted at:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/edu/proposals_c8.html

A 12 month Chandra calendar is available for download 
and printing from a link on the top page of the Chandra public
web site, or go directly to: 
 http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/handouts/lithos/calendar07.html


Kathleen Lestition                      
Education & Outreach Coordinator       


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

Item 4. Meeting Announcement
============================

High Energy Astrophysics: the keV-Tev Connection

Yerevan, Armenia 

August 20-25, 2007

SOC:  F. Aharonian, X. Barcons, T. Courvoisier, G. Hasinger

Information is available at:  

http://www.aras.am/JENAM-2007/index.htm


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

Item 5. X-ray Grating Spectroscopy Workshop
===========================================


The Chandra X-ray Center will host a science workshop on  
X-ray Grating Spectroscopy  in Cambridge, MA, July 11-13, 2007.  
The Scientific Organizing Committee has formed and is led by
Jane Turner (Chair) and Nancy Brickhouse (Vice Chair).

Further information on the workshop  can be found at
	http://cxc.harvard.edu/xgratings07
or by contacting xgratings07@cfa.harvard.edu



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






This Electronic Bulletin is used for the dissemination of important
announcements and information about the Chandra X-Ray Observatory to members
of the community. If you wish to unsubscribe from the list, simply reply to
this email to let us know.