Scripts Package:
Version History

• Support for processing 'On Board Computer' (OBC) aspect solution mode added which is used for observations of the Earth and Moon.
• Fixed a problem running sso_freeze with datasets that use multiple aspect solution files.
• Fixes a problem where older datasets with invalid good time intervals would fail to be reprocessed.

Problem when Type II PHA files without background spectra block fixed.

Code cleanup, remove obsolete dependencies.

Issues with using mirror archives fixed.

Large number of regions can lead to excessively long run-times due to how data was being written out. Rewrote the output file routine to improve performance.

• Logic updated for when overlapping regions cannot be shrunk any further. Simplifies the region logic (previous complex logic could lead to excessively long run-times).
• If the marx_root parameter is blank (e.g. the MARX_ROOT environment variable is not set), the script will now try to use the location of the marx executable as the marx_root.

Added support for catalog=latest to access the latest released catalog version. This differs from catalog=current which accesses the current catalog database that may change before it is officially released.

• Added maxsize parameter to control the maximum allowed size of the PSF image.
• Added a check for ACIS Continuous Clocking (CC) mode.
• If the marx_root parameter is blank (e.g. the MARX_ROOT environment variable is not set), the script will now try to use the location of the marx executable as the marx_root.

Internal code clean up. Fixed a 'zero-counts in region' check that was being missed for background data, typically due to a lack of counts needed to generate background responses in the energy range specified by the energy_wmap parameter.

• Filename convention when merging results from multiple gratings zeroth-order datasets fixed.
• Update to how region information is passed around when very long/complex regions are used (e.g. as can be created using the new regions=optimized option).
• If the marx_root parameter is blank (e.g. the MARX_ROOT environment variable is not set), the script will now try to use the location of the marx executable as the marx_root.

Added new weighted statistics options that may be important when working with large energy bands where the efficiency of the instrument changes significantly. Options include weighted mean, median, min, max, and sum. The new wcolumn parameter is added to specify which column to use for the weights.

An easier way to create "perfect" responses (flat ARF and a diagonal RMF) for a variety of X-ray instruments, returned as Sherpa Python objects.

Fixed problem parsing sexagesimal formatted coordinates in an input file affecting: srcflux, psfsize_srcs, psf_contour, and bkg_fixed_counts.

Added extra checks on the region subspace and the valid axes ranges to reflect recent changes in several compiled tools. This may result in some filter/binning combinations leading to the top row and right column of the image being excluded from the subspace, which is used by the centroid_map, hexgrid, map2reg, mkregmap, pathfinder, and vtbin scripts.

dmcopy no longer uses opt=all due to a bug affecting GTIs, which is utilized by fluximage, flux_obs, reproject_obs, and merge_obs.

• A new dataset_id parameter allows users to choose any of their loaded datasets and models to plot with notebook_plotter.
• Checks added to ensure notebook_plotter is showing accurate information; warning messages improved.
• Example section added to the function's docstring and clarified several parameter descriptions.
• Modified examples in the notebook tutorial to account for the new features and bug fixes to notebook_plotter.
• Bug fixes for updating plotted values when the model is not assigned to the dataset (via set_source), and for a case when the plot_type was 'both_models' (the convolved values could have been wrong).

• The model editor now checks that any values that have been modified have been set (by pressing the Return or Enter key) before allowing the user to proceed with certain actions such as Fit or Plot.
• The image tasks will now handle images that have been blocked by DS9.
• Re-ordered and renamed a number of tasks:

  Original name	New name
  PI	Spectrum (PI)
  PHA	Spectrum (PHA)
  TIME	Ligthcurve (Time)
  EXPNO	Lightcurve (Exposure Number)

A new technique to create true color images from a continuous energy spectrum rather than traditional tri-color images created using 3 energy bands. The inputs include a map estimating the median (or mean) energy in each pixel (for example created using the statmap tool), and an image of the counts or flux.

Creates a regular grid of hexagonal shaped map regions. Hexagons can best approximate circles as they are the highest order regular polygon that can uniformly tile a plane.

Creates a map file based on the Voronoi Tessellation of points in the input image. By default it uses the location of the local maxima or users can supply their own locations (via the sitefile).

This script runs vtbin and then computes the centroid of the pixel values in each map region. It then repeats the Voronoi Tessellation using the centroid values N-many times, where N is the numiter parameter.

This script generates map regions based on the local gradient. It follows the steepest ascent to the local maxima. All pixels that reach the same local maxim are grouped together. Better for point sources and other "clumpy" emission.

Turn a stack of regions into a map file.

A utility tool to take a map file and converts it into a region file.

Some of these algorithms can create small regions needed to "fill in" the space between other more statistically significant regions. The merge_too_small script will re-assign small groups to the largest neighboring group; where "small" is either area below threshold or counts below threshold.

The script now defaults to creating images with the i4 datatype (4-byte integer) rather than i2 (2-byte integer) it used to use, as the old behavior could lead to data loss. This does increase the memory needed to store the images, so the datatype parameter can be used to change back to the old behaviour.

'blanksky' has been updated to make use of the CHKVFPHA keyword, introduced to acis_process_events in CIAO 4.16, to determine if "status=0" event filtering should be applied to ACIS VFaint observations, but will fall back on the old technique of parsing the input event file header to make the determination if the new keyword is not available. The 'blanksky_sample' will make use of the reference 'infile' keywords for the optional combined infile/sampled background products instead of the 'Merged'-valued keywords as a result of using dmmerge.

The script has been updated to handle the updated ciao-install script and provide initial support for using mamba/micromamba to install CIAO.

Support for the ENERGIES command from XSPEC has been added.

The script has been updated to match changes to Sherpa in CIAO 4.16.

The script has been updated to support changes to Sherpa plotting in this release.

The script has been updated so that file validation checks at its initialization will not have a dependency on mask files, which are otherwise not used.

The script has been updated so that event files generated by MARX are supported and better handling of the ancillary file parameters when set to "none" values. In particular when the bad pixel file parameter was set to "none", occasionally it would revert to using the default bad pixel file from the CalDB, which is now fixed.

• Added new option to create "optimized" source and background regions based on the PSF.
• The marx_root parameter is also added to specify the directory where marx is installed.
• In addition, there is a numerical precision bug fix when computing the combined PSF fraction when merging datasets.

This module introduces the MaskedIMAGECrate class. It is a subclass of the standard crates IMAGECrate class but extends it to include a valid method to check if the pixel location is a valid pixel (inside subspace and not NULL/NaN/Inf). It only supports 2D images.

The module has been updated to reflect parameter changes and the new scripts added in this release.

The routines have been updated to support changes to Sherpa plotting in this release.

The default Chandra dither parameters have changed recently which may be important especially when doing timing analysis and trying to identify instrumental effects. This script will estimate the dither amplitude and period from the aspect solution file.

Logic to parse coordinates simplified.

Updated to better support building with shared libraries on MacOS.

Several enhancements and bugs fixed to better handle XCM files. Initial support added for XSpec's MDEFINE function, although not all cases are supported, and improved handling of the NOTICE and IGNORE commands with files that are non-OGIP compliant..

• If the fit fails when using method=fitted_ellipse a circular region will now be returned instead of erroring out.
• Logic to parse coordinates simplified.

• Logic improved when the computed metric using the selected method is equal, eg both regions include the same brighest pixel, ensuring that overlap area is assigned to only one source.
• Binning logic improved handling event file input to ensure that all data are binned on the same half-pixel grid boundaries.

Updated to use the new CXCRegion module object which has increased numerical precision of region parameters.

Updated to remove dependence on deprecated setuptools module.

Corrects the frame time used when simulating pileup.

Internal updates to how CIAO tools are run to provide more robustness with parallel processes.

• Check added ensuring event files have the same tangent point when combining data sets.
• Check added for missing/obsolete parameter files.
• Bug fixed for handling merged aperature photometry when calculations fail.

Updated to change the matplotlib plotting backend if no $DISPLAY is set.

Bug fix when opening a file with 0 columns.

The revision can now be supplied and will be included with the verbose output.

Compute upper limits for the detection of a source, using data obtained from background apertures in event lists, images, and exposure maps. It is based on the article: On computing upper limits to source intensities (Kashyap et al. 2010, ApJ, 719, 900); https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010ApJ...719..900K.

The stowedbg parameter has been added to allow the stowed background files to be used. This is only useful for CTI-corrected ACIS observations.

Create a background region with a fixed number of counts. The region center is specified and then an annulus is created which encloses the requested number of counts (as a minimum). The inner radius of the annulus is based on the PSF size at the location, set by the enclosed counts fraction, and overlapping source regions if set.

Fixed a problem when multiple SSO eph1 files are found. Work around a DM bug when tg_zo_position=detect which prevented tgdetect2 from choosing the tg_find_zo algorithm

The script has been updated to account for changes in the interface to the XSPEC model library. The script will also now attempt to exclude code that XSPEC's initpackage call may have added to the directory. Please contact the CXC helpdesk if you are having problems with this script.

The script has been updated to account for Sherpa plotting updates.

dax now properly updates the WCS when ds9 has blocked the image being analyzed (this is different to zoom or bin, which did not need updating).

Three new tasks have been added: Coordinates -> Interactive Grating Coordinates Vector, Regions -> PSF Contour, and Regions -> Fixed Counts Background.

The list of Image Processing -> Non-Linear Filters includes the new dmimgfilt filters: ridge, plain, q10, q90, and jitter.

Changes to Sherpa fitting routines to clean up the textual output.

As mkgrmf can now create a diagonal matrix for HRC data, the work-around to handle the HRC-I + HETG case has been removed.

Create a source region file from a simulated mono-chromatic PSF that is created with MARX. There are a number of ways that the region can be constructed based on the desired fraction of counts: a contour; a lasso, which is similar to the contour option but uses dmimglasso rather than dmcontour; a convex hull, which should reduce the complexity compared to the contour or lassoo options; an ellipse fit to the data; and an ellipse that encloses the fraction.

The resp_pos parameter has been added. Previously, specextract would use the location of the maximum pixel in the extraction region, but the default is to use the center from the extraction region, but the resp_pos parameter can be used to change this.

The way that the tools are run in parallel has been reworked to improve the behavior.

The screen output - when used in an interactive terminal - has been updated to better handle the case where multiple files are being processed.

A fix for an odd bug with the name of the combined files not matching the outroot parameter has been fixed.

The plugin concept has been added to srcflux, which allows users to add extra code and merge the results to the tables and outputs that srcflux creates.

With psfmethod=marx, the PSFs will now be simulated in parallel (based on the 'parallel' and 'nproc' parameters).

The default background region inner radius has been increased. Previously it was the same as the source radius; it is now 1.7 times the source radius. This improves the background estimate around very bright sources; events spread by the PSF could bias the background estimate.

When merging observations, a new "INSIDE_FOV" column is added to the merged .flux output file. It is an array of boolean values (True|False) which indicates which observations the source was imaged in.

Compute simple statistics for events in each map region. This allows simple statistics to be computed from adaptive binning tools, such as dmnautilus and dmradar.

The module has been updated to reflect parameter changes and the new scripts added in this release. The module now points out those scripts which can not be run - as they do not have a parameter file - and points users to alternative ways to run them.

The module has been updated to account for Sherpa plotting updates.

The module has been updated to account for Sherpa plotting updates.

Introduces a new derived class, TGPixlib, to help convert from sky coordinates to grating coordinates: dispersion angles and energy.

The scripts have been updated to allow users to search the "current" Chandra Source Catalog, catalog="current". The "current" CSC catalog is, as of September 2022, the in-production version of CSC 2.1. Please see the Chandra Source Catalog Release 2.1 page, for details and important caveats.

Module updated to fix a problem when the configuration data is missing some of the SIM header keywords.

Several regressions found in the 4.14.0 release have been fixed, primarily affecting usage with blanksky background files and data of Solar System objects.

The default value for the verbose parameter has been changed to 1 from 0

Updated to better handle cases where the system OpenSSL is unable to access SSL certificates.

The default for the clobber parameter has been changed to no.

The HRC-S/LETG bow-tie filter, designed to reduce background, is not appropriate for data acquired after the HRC-S high-voltage gain was changed. The bow-tie filter is marked invalid in CalDB 4.9.6 for these data. chandra_repro has been modified to correctly recognize that the file is not appropriate and continue processing without it.

The --exclude option has been added, to allow file types to be excluded, and the vvref file type has been added to identify the vvref2.pdf.gz file in the secondary directory.

The script will now skip downloading CALDB files associated with the transmission gratings (TG) if neither of the gratings were inserted during the observation.

The frame-store shadow is now included when calculating the instrument map for ACIS observations. This means that a small number of rows of the instrument and exposure maps are now excluded, to match the data processing. Please see the ACIS frame-store caveat for more information: Caveats about ACIS Frame Store Shadow Bad Pixels.

• Added additional redshifted absorption spectral models.
• Added energy limits to the photon and energy flux calculations. Previously, the fluxes were computed for the entire energy range rather than for just the noticed energy range.
• Added button to run conf to the Model Editor GUI.

The frame-store shadow is now included when calculating the ARF for ACIS observations. This means that a small number of rows of the CCDs are now excluded. Bug fixed handling blanksky background files and additional internal changes made cleaning up code and logic.

The frame-store shadow is now included when calculating the grating ARFs for ACIS observations making a change to the effective area at wavelengths which intersect the bottom edge of the CCD (if any). Updated to support HRC-I/LETG LSFPARM files if they are available in the CALDB. They are expected to be released in March 2021 with the Chandra CALDB 4.9.5 release.

Now updates the reprocessed aspect solution file, pcadf*_repro_asol1.fits, to include the RA_NOM, DEC_NOM, and ROLL_NOM keywords. They keywords are removed the by asp_offaxis_corr tool but are required by MARX. The new parameter, pi_filter, controls whether the HRC-S/LETG background PI filter is applied or not.

Bug fixed affectin ciao-install installations when checking CALDB version.

dax significantly enhanced. For most tasks, users will now see a progress bar with the name of the CIAO tool which is running; each of the Sherpa fitting tasks will now launch a model parameter editor and interactively adjust the plots and results.

The Net Counts and Photometry (srcflux) tasks have moved into the Count Rates and Fluxes sub-menu. The format of the Net Counts has changed slightly and now includes net rate errors.

The newest features are highlighted below:

• Detect → wavdetect task is now available. Users select the wavelet scales which are used.
• Chandra PSF → Simulate PSF with MARX task. Users can now simulate the a monochromatic Chandra PSF using MARX. MARX needs to be setup in the users environment before running DS9.
• Coordinates → Chandra Grating Energy Lookup. Users draw a region around the 0th order location. When this task is run, it will prompt the user for a list of energies and orders. The location of these energies and orders will be identified on the image. Only for Chandra observation which used the gratings (HETG or LETG).
• Image Processing → Regrid task which allows the user to shift, scale, and rotate image pixel values, but does not adjust the WCS.
• Image Calculator tasks allow users to perform simple arithmetic operations (add, multiply, divide, subtract) using the images displayed in 2 frames. Additional scaling functions are provided for the current frame.
• Custom Color Map task allows user to generate a new color map based on standard X11 color names.
• Histogram → Dither Region computes the fraction of the region area exposed vs. time due to dither for Chandra datasets.
• Histogram → Enclosed Counts Fraction computes the ECF in the selected region.
• Sherpa → Spectral Fit enhanced, including and expanded list of available spectral models and users can also specify a second additive model component.
• The Detect → celldetect task now allows users to change the fixed cellsize that is used. Users can also now supply exposure map and PSF map files along with setting the SNR threshold.
• Regions → PSF Fraction task updated to force regions to DS9 format. This update prevents dax from hanging when users have modified their preferences to save regions in CIAO format.

Error message enhanced when sigma clipping fails, providing the unclipped mean and \(n\sigma\) count rate calculated from the input lightcurve.

The skyfov method=convexhull algorithm will now be used when the script find the new style aspect solution files (those with the header keyword CONTENT="ASPSOLOBI"). This new FOV provides a tighter fitting polygon around each chip.

Updated to no longer accesses the archive via FTP. The file download is now done in decreasing order of file size (per ObsID).

Updated to no longer accesses the CalDB files via FTP and now generates standard CALDB setup scripts.

The script was broken by the DS 10.8.3 upgrade. and now has been fixed. The name server now falls back to using the Sesame service from CDS if the CADC server fails.

Fixed bug with TYPE:II PHA files created with the tgextract2 tool where the background BACKSCAL column was incorrectly copied from the source region.

Updated the Regions→PSF Fraction task to force regions into DS9 format. This update prevents dax from hanging when users have modified their preferences to save regions in CIAO format.

Fixed bug that caused parameter values in the script's HISTORY records to be reset to their default (blank) values.

The script will now run when verbose=0.

The identify_name routine now tries the Sesame server from CDS if the CADC name server fails to identify the name.

These scripts now default to the Chandra Source Catalog 2.0 release, setting version=csc1 if you need to search version 1.1 of the CSC.

The script has been fixed so that XMM and Suzaku—or any file missing the some header keywords—lightcurve files may be used again to create plots.

Bug fixed when the psfmerge parameter is set to exptime or expmap caused the scripts to fail.

A bug has been fixed where if bkg_spectra=NONE, it should have ignored the BACKFILE keywords and skipped combining the background spectra, but failed to do so.

The module has been updated to add the catalog parameter to the search_csc and obsid_search_csc functions. The default is to use version 2.0 of the Chandra Source Catalog.

When reprocessing a gratings observation, individual (type I rather than type II) source and background files are created, with the correct ANCRFILE, RESPFILE, BACKFILE, and BACKSCAL keywords.

For LETG datasets using HRC-S, grating responses for orders -8 to +8 are now created (previously only -1 and +1 were created).

Bug fixed where the net_phoflux and net_flux values have been corrected for an error in calculating the source contribution to the background area via the PSF. If you set the psfmethod parameter to file, marx, or arfcorr, then the fluxes were being over-estimated by ~5 to 15% (typical). The over-estimate was proportional to the ratio of the area of the background to source area and to the background PSF fraction.

Major update; highlights include:

• files created by the tools can now be saved to a user-specified directory, so users can access the data products.
• plots are now created with DS9 rather than using ChIPS.
• a number of new tasks have been added, as well as improvements made to existing tasks:
  • users can now choose which statistic to use in spectral fits with Sherpa
  • improvements in supporting DS9 regions with CIAO tools
  • a number of tools will now use the data as shown in DS9 (e.g. smoothing) rather than the input file

The aimpoint chip of the observation is now calculated using the RA_PNT and DEC_PNT keywords rather than the RA_NOM and DEC_NOM ones. This is to better support reprojected data sets.

This script is used in dax to convert from DS9 regions to CIAO format. This may be useful for other users, but please be aware that interpreting a DS9 region file can be a surprisingly complex task.

Updated for HRC to keep all the standard columns defined in the hrc_process_events stdlev1 event-definition parameter and the SAMP values.

Can now create a PSF map using the optional "psfecf" parameter. An additional "psfmerge" parameter is available in flux_obs and merge_obs for choosing how the per-observation PSF maps are combined.

"ardlibqual" parameter added allowing users to pass ardlib qualifiers to the calls to mkgarf.

Internal changes and improved error messages.

Fixed bug introduced to script in CIAO 4.10.

Updated for parameter changes in CIAO 4.11.

Updated the experimental support for XSPEC convolution models to add support for the following XSPEC models:

lumin, cpflux, rfxconv, rgsxsrc, vashift, vmshift, and xilconv

Script has been updated to use the new location of the Chandra Footprint Server, which is https://cxcfps.harvard.edu/cda/footprint/cdaview.html. Unfortunately, not all versions of CIAO 4.10 contain a Python that supports SSL, and in these cases the script will try to use the curl and wget command-line tools to access the data.

Intended for internal use in support of the HRC Calibration group, the rmffile parameter is enabled for HRC observations to extract zeroth-order gratings data. It is expected that typical users should keep rmffile=CALDB for HRC data.

The CIAO → Statistics → Photometry (srcflux) task now allows users to select the method used to estimate the PSF fraction for their analysis.

• arfcorr uses a circularly symmetrical approximation of the PSF (default)
• ideal assumes 100% of the PSF is in the source region.
• quick looks up the PSF fraction in circular source regions.
• marx runs simulate_psf to generate a MARX simulated PSF to measure the PSF fractions. This option requires MARX be installed.

Internal fix handling observations with OBC aspect solutions (restricted to Earth and Moon observations only). chandra_repro still cannot be used with these observations but the error message is more informative.

Script modified, adding internal optimization for the case where a large number of positions are used, especially when psfmethod=psffile. There is no change to the output.

Updated so that temporary aspect histogram files are cleaned up in Python 3.5.

Typo fixed in screen output and script modified to add file history using the Python ciao_contrib.runtool.add_tool_history instead of relying on dmhistory.

Script modified to run fluximage with background=none, to avoid double counting the background, since srcflux also determines the background independently. This change only affects HRC-I observations.

The output simulated events file now includes a [x=:,y=:] to trim the TLMIN/TLMAX keyword range of the output event file to make visuzlizing results in DS9 easier.

Bug fixed that was triggered by multi-asol observations causing runtime failure with Python 3.5.

• New random parameter added to pass to reproject_events, in order to create re-producible results.
• The DY_AVG, DZ_AVG, and DTH_AVG header keywords are added to the tailored blanksky background file that match the reference events file, which fixes incomplete transformations to sky and chips coordinates when the background file is reprojected.

• Bug fixed which caused the script to fail when co-adding *3* sets of spectra and responses when bkgresp=no. The individual sets of data products are otherwise correct.
• Focal plane temperature testing is skipped for HRC observations, since the event file does not have the FP_TEMP header keyword, which would cause the script the error out.

Script to create an unscaled blanksky background file compatible with a given observation events file. The background scaling factors for each chip are calculated and stored in the file header.

Script to create scaled background and background-subtracted images given an observation-specific blanksky background file and a reference image.

Script to correct small (~0.1 arcsec) intra-observation alignment drifts that can be seen in recent, long (>50 ks) observations. Requires a bright, on-axis (<2 arcmin) point source with minimal pileup.

• binarfcorr parameter added to explicitly specify detector pixel size used by arfcorr PSF correction.

• Additional checks and warning messages added for warm observations with focal plane temperatures >-110C.

• If weight=no and P2_resp calibration files are available, mkacisrmf runs with infile=CALDB(CCD_ID=x)—where 'x' is the CCD that the extraction region is centered on— instead of just infile=CALDB to avoid inadvertent tool failure.

• Users with MARX installed can now use psfmethod=marx to simulate a mono-chromatic PSF that is used for aperture correction.
• Users can input multiple event files, but the results are not merged. The same regions, if specified, are used for each event file so the regions need to be in celestial coordinates or the events files must be reprojected to the same tangent plane.
• The default model and absmodel have been updated to separate the absorption model.
• A new ${root}_summary.txt file is created with a copy of the final summary information.
• Bug fixed affecting psfmethod=arfcorr PSF file names.

Error fixed when using tgextract2 pha2 files which were created with error=gehrels.

Updates to several tasks to request regions in a specific format.

Corrects a problem in the auto-generated bash-shell setup script.

New "random" parameter has been added to these scripts to control the random parameter used to reproject the HRC-I background events.

New "random" parameter has been added to control the stream of random CHIPY values.

• Support added for models which specify an initialization string in the model parameter file, such as "snapec".

• Support for XSpec convolution models in CIAO/Sherpa 4.8 will be added at a later date.

The routines in this module have been updated to be compatible with ChaRT v2.

• Creating an Input Spectrum for MARX and ChaRT Simulations

Updated for the new parameters added to readout_bkg, fluximage, flux_obs, and merge_obs scripts.

Script to model the Out of Time (OOT) contribution of bright and extended sources to the ACIS background.

New script that automates the standard steps necessary to download, build, and install MARX 5.1.

Missing ahelp files for the Python group module have been placed in the $ASCDS_INSTALL/contrib/doc/xml directory so that they can be accessible to the user.

• Checks the file names in the primary and secondary directory against the file names in the level 1 event file header.
• The absolute input and output path names are now checked for whitespaces and will error out.
• Supports FAINT_BIAS datasets.
• Additional time and spatial filters are applied to ensure that the level 2 event file only contains events when the aspect solution exists.
• ACIS TIMED-mode observations now have their GTIs aligned to expsure frame time boundaries.
• Only the +/- 1st-order responses are created for grating observations.

• The orders parameter has been added to allow the creation of responses for an arbitrary set of orders.
• By default, the responses for different orders are produced in parallel. This is controlled by the newly introduced parallel and nproc parameters.

• Better handling of non-bad pixel ardlib parameters, such as contamination models and detector QE/QEU files.
• Handling of COLDEN failures fixed.
• The absolute input and output path names are now checked for whitespaces and will error out.

• Additional per-source data products are now saved, including image, exposure map, flux image, PSF, and the net count-rate probability density function.
• The output .flux file now contains the CHIP_ID, CHIPX, and CHIPY values for the nominal source location.
• Setting the mskfile, bpixfile, and dtffile parameters to "none" is now passed onto the underlying tools. Leaving the value as blank, "", instructs the tool to locate the files from the event file meta-data.
• The spectral model parameters can now take special tokens: %NRAO_NH% and/or %BELL_NH%. These tokes are replaced with the values reported by the COLDEN tool for the source's location. The value %GAL% can also be used as short-hand for %NRAO_NH%.
• The per-chip live time (LIVTIMEx) is now used rather than the LIVETIME value for the aimpoint chip.

Automates the steps necessary to separate multi-ObI and interleaved-mode observations into individual directories compatible with chandra_repro. For multi-ObI grating observations, the REGION block is attached to the level 2 event file.

For ACIS observations only. Synchronizes the input GTIs to the ACIS exposure boundaries.

Create a single multi-chip GTI from individual GTIs.

The output metadata (including block order) may be different.

Bug fixed when checking that all input files have the same channel grid.

Fix logic to allow background to be optionally used.

Adds tool history to output file and corrects the logic when applied to areas outside a sub-arrayed dataset.

Adds tool history to output file.

• ahelp file added.
• New routine to convert to Chandra coordinates from sky(x,y).
• Forces the Pixlib() initialization to only happen once.

• Allows users to combine spectra from positive and negative grating orders and to combine spectra across multiple observations (or sources).
• Works with either Type II PHA files retrieved from the the archive or created by chandra_repro, as well as Type I files available from the TGCat catalog.
• Response files and background files are handled automatically.
• Output is a set of Type I PHA files for each order and arm, and the associated responses.
• This script replaces the add_grating_orders and add_grating_spectra scripts. They will be removed from a future scripts release.

• Convert a Type II PHA file to a set of Type I source and background PHA files. _UP and _DN (down) grating arm background spectra are combined.
• Given a stack of response files (ARFs and RMFs), it will attempt to match the responses to the correct spectra and update the ANCRFILE and RESPFILE keywords as appropriate.

A bug was fixed causing failures when a weighted ARF and an unweighted RMF are to be created for -110C ACIS data.

• A value of NONE is now valid for the src_arf, src_rmf, bkg_pha, bkg_arf, or bkg_rmf parameters. If a parameter is set to NONE, then those respective files will not be combined, even if they are located via the ANCRFILE, RESPFILE or BACKFILE header keywords.
• A bug was fixed where the script errors out if any of the background is zero in the same channel in all the input spectra when bscale_method=counts.

• New Statistics → Net Counts option to obtain the net counts individually in each of the regions.
• Moved and renamed the Statistics → Photometry (srcflux) task from the Regions menu. Fixed a bug when multiple source or background regions are selected.
• Renamed the Statistics → All tasks to dmstat.
• Tasks which use XPA to get information or report results have been updated to check that only a single DS9 session is running. The previous behavior of the tasks was unpredictable.

Create light curves from optical data from the aspect camera.

See:

• Processing ACA Monitor Window Data

Provide summary of the status bits set for the rows and what each bit means for an event file.

Create an image of an event file using the limits from an FOV file.

Bug fixed where the background photon flux values, BG_PHOTFLUX, were all calculated to be zero. Subsequently, the NET_PHOTFLUX_APER value and corresponding errors were not background subtracted.

Script re-written to use Python tempfile. New parameters bscale_method and exp_origin added for expert-users.

• FOV file is now made using an aspect solution that has been time-filtered to match the GTI of the event files when calculating the an observation's sky area coverage.
• When processing HRC data, the bands parameter can be used to apply a PI filter. For example, bands=30:200:1.1 will use the PI range 30 to 200 for the analysis and evaluate the instrument map at 1.1 keV.
• HRC-I background subtraction has been modified, adding additional metadata about the particle background scaling factor appled during background subtraction. Scaling the background by the particle flux, rather than the exposure time, for subtraction is supported by the new bkgparams and background=particle parameters.

• Better handling of observations with multiple asol files.
• Fixed issues handling outroots pointing to nested directory paths.
• Galactic neutral hydrogen column densities added to the spectrum files with the header keywords NRAO_nH and Bell_nH for the source extraction position derived from COLDEN.

Support added for evt1a and adat (PCAD ACA images) file types.

File history added to output file header.

Bug fix to support image files.

Provides the encircled counts fraction (ECF) of from a circular region around a given source position as a function of radius.

• Retain the unsubtracted and particle background images when cleanup=no withg HRC-I data, when background subtraction is selected.
• Now deletes all the instrument map files when cleanup=yes and multiple bands are specified.

• The asol, badpix, pbk, and mask files defined in the event file header will be used by default by the script—if they are located in their standard sub-directories—unless explicitly specified.
• The correct parameter has been renamed correctpsf.

• Default PI filter removed for non-grating HRC-S observations. Using a PI=0:300 filter for HRC data may decrease noise, but has not been sufficiently studied. The filter may be applied by the user, if desired.
• Minor bug fix for when two non-interleave mode event files are found in the secondary/ directory. An additional change has been made to delay creation of the output directory until the inputs have been verified.

New scripts that allow users to search the Chandra Source Catalog (CSC) from the command-line:

• search_csc allows users to input a name or a position.
• obsid_search_csc accepts a list of OBS_ID values.

Both scripts can retrieve arbitrary sets of columns from the CSC and save the results as a tab-delimited ASCII file. Additionally, the per source and per observation data products—including event files; images; spectra; lightcurves; and their associated response files (PSF, RMF, ARF, exposure maps)—may be retrieved.

See: CSC Command-line Interface

Support of downloading from mirror sites added, rather than requiring direct access to the Chandra Data Archive.

• Improved handling of input files containing DM filters.
• Description of the bands parameter has been updated, since the low- and high-energy values are required for ACIS data, and should not be given for HRC data.

• The chips_contrib.pyplot module—which provides a limited emulation of the matplotlib pyplot module, allowing for the use of pyplot commands with ChIPS—has been added.
• The chips_contrib.decorators module has been added.

New ahelp pages added; describes some of the Python routines used by the scripts, in particular download_chandra_obsid and find_chandra_obsid.

• identify_name
• cda_data
• cda_search
• coords_format
• coords_utils

• Improved handling of HRC data, including warnings when data needs reprocessing due to different PI characteristics and better support for some subspace filters that appear in Repro IV.
• Event files with OBS_ID keyword of Merged are automatically skipped.
• Interleaved-mode data can now be combined without explicitly listing e1 and e2 observations.
• Handling of missing ancillary files, such as the PBK file, has been improved.
• The asol argument is checked to make sure an aspect histogram is not used by mistake.

• Supports interleaved-mode observations without the user needing to split the e1 and e2 observations into separate directories.
• New recreate_tg_mask parameter added. By default, the existing region appended to the original evt2 file is now used rather than recreated using tgdetect and tg_create_mask.
• When reprocessing an observation using gratings, the ARF and RMF files for each order and arm are now created. They are saved into a tg sub-directory of the output directory.

New scripts to assist in making custom region extraction masks for tgextract2.

See:

• Applying Customized Background Regions to LETG/HRC-S Observations (TO BE UPDATED)

New scripts to that will take a Type II PHA file produced by tgextract or tgextract2 and will create the ARF and RMF for each order and grating arm.