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New Announcement:

From 2003-03-05 changes will be made to the quick pseudo-production FITS files provided by the RXTE SOF

The SOF has changed the structure of quick pseudo-production files to make them more similar to the final production files thereby making analysis simpler. No other FITS products will be affected.

Currently there are three types of FITS files that are provided to RXTE users. These are:

  1. Quick FITS files produced within a few hours of the end of an observation.
  2. Quick pseudo-production level files made approximately 1 day after the end of an observation.
  3. Full production available within a couple of weeks of an observation
The changes being made to the FITS files will only affect type 2) above, the quick pseudo-production level files.

Previously both types 1) and 2) differed from the production data in that several keywords were missing from the FITS files and the directory structure differed.

The new quick pseudo-production files will:

  • contain previously omitted keywords: RA, DEC and OBSID
  • the directory structure will now be identical to the full production files.
  • Small changes in the data format have been made to make them fully FITS compliant. e.g. floating point numbers previously written as xx.xxxe-10 are now written as xx.xxxE-10 These changes will also be made to other FITS products at a later date.

With these changes several of the additional steps previously required to analyze quick pseudo-production level data as described on the RXTE analysis recipes page are no longer needed. These are:
1. It is no longer necessary to insert RA and dec. into the index file.
3. Determine the "real" ObsID.

Announcement:

The SOF has switched to automatically making FITS files with all data modes for every observation. Thus it is no longer necessary to request GO mode data because it will be included in the FITS files with the Standard mode data. Also, when it becomes available, production data will be used to create a second, possibly better copy of the FITS data. This production data will also be on the ftp server in the directory pub/FITS/production .

Overview:

  • As a convenience to guest observers, the RXTE SOF is providing a FITS package of all data products made from the realtime and production data. Note that this is a change from the past in which only standard mode products were provided by default.
  • This data is proprietary, please do not attempt to download and decrypt any data not owned by you.
  • The realtime FITS creation is run throughout the day. Data that is complete at the time the process runs is made into FITS via XFF, then encrypted using PGP, and put on the anonymous ftp server. Realtime FITS packages of GO data will only remain on this server for 7 days. The realtime FITS files may be deleted after the production version arrives.
  • The production FITS creation is run twice per day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Production FITS files will be kept for about 20 days.
  • Public-owned observations are available, the encryption key is 'publictoo'.
  • This service is completely independent of the RXTE GOF; PIs will continue to get their data from the GOF in the usual way.
  • Please contact the SOF(xtesof@xtesof.nascom.nasa.gov) with questions about getting data through this service, and contact the GOF at xtehelp@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov with questions about reducing data.

Specifics:

  • XFF is run as follows on the realtime data: 
    xff -r -f $obsid -l $obsid/$obsid.log -s $stmet -t $endmet -n 0 
     -a 1 14 15 16 17 20 21 24 55 59 63 70 74 79 80 86 90 91 92 93 94
     82 84 85 88 200 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 251 252 253 254
    NOTE: apids 16, 17, 20, and 24 were added on 2/5/97.
    where
    • $obsid is the observation id, e.g. 10101-01-01-00,
    • $stmet is the starting MET of the observation (includes the slew to the target)
    • $endmet is the ending MET of the observation,
    • the numbers after '-a' are the apids that are processed: 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 24, and 237 - 254 contain spacecraft orientation information. 70 and 74 contain PCA standard 1 and 2. 82 and 88 contain HEXTE Archive (standard) modes for clusters A and B. Finally, 90 - 94 contain PCA housekeeping data.

  • PGP is a popular encryption package, and is used here to protect the privacy of your data. In this case, it is not run in public-key mode, due to the impossibility of getting all the PI/Co-I's public keys in advance of their observation. Instead, it is run in its conventional encryption mode: 'pgp -c filename'. If PGP version 2.6.2 is not installed on your system (just type 'pgp' to find out), you must install it in order to decrypt your data. US citizens in the United States, or Canadian citizens in Canada may download PGP from the MIT distribution site. Others may download the international version from the International PGP page. The two versions are completely compatible.
    NOTE: Some countries prohibit or regulate the use of cryptography, so please check your country's policies before attempting to download or use PGP!

How to access your data:

  • Either : Or
    • ftp to xtesof.nascom.nasa.gov, login as 'anonymous', give your email address as your password. 
    • cd pub/FITS/ (or cd pub/FITS/production) 
    • binary 
    • get obsid.tar.pgp  
    • quit
  • To decrypt your data, type:
    pgp obsid.tar.pgp
    You will be prompted for the pass phrase, which is simply the 'access key' which was sent to you in your schedule notification email. You can have the access key redelivered to you via this form.
  • Un-tar the data:
    tar -xvf obsid.tar
    Now you have a directory which has the same structure as the production data the RXTE GOF will be sending you.
  • Files with the '.gz' extension have been gzipped for conservation of disk space, you will need to 'gunzip' them for analysis.
  • See the RXTE GOF guide to data analysis and processing, especially the recipe Working with Realtime Data.

XTE SOF - xtesof@xtesof.nascom.nasa.gov
RXTE SOF Public Access Site

Responsible NASA Official: Phil Newman
Web Curator: Robin Corbet

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Friday, 23-Jun-2006 15:25:50 EDT