Chandra Announcement: CIAO 4.13, Chandra CALDB 4.9.4, DS9 8.2, MARX 5.5.1 released
Tara Gokas
CIAO 4.13, Chandra CALDB 4.9.4, DS9 8.2, MARX 5.5.1 released
The Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) is pleased to announce that version 4.13 of CIAO ("Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations") and version 4.9.4 of Chandra CALDB ("Calibration Database") are available for download from http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/
Version 8.2 of SAOImage DS9 (the astronomical imaging and data visualization application) is included as part of the CIAO installation. It can also be downloaded and installed as a stand-alone application from http://ds9.si.edu/site/Download.html.
Version 5.5.1 of MARX (the Chandra on-orbit performance simulator) can be installed as part of the CIAO installation or separately from http://space.mit.edu/CXC/MARX
CIAO 4.13
Notable changes and improvements (read the complete release notes for full details):
CIAO can be installed using the conda package manager. Users can install the conda edition of CIAO with Python 3.8, 3.7, or 3.6 on Linux and Mac.
The ciao-install script can also be used to install CIAO 4.13 without conda, now with Python 3.7.Several tools have been updated including:
dmcoords allows conversion to/from Chandra grating coordinates.
wcs_update allows users to interactively select sources to use for astrometric corrections.
the new tool asp_offaxis_corr allows users to update the aspect solution file to apply the proper boresight corrections
The peg and taskmonitor tools have been removed from CIAO. The Analysis Menu item in prism has also been removed.
CIAO contrib script updates since the previous CIAO release include:
srcflux can now compute estimates of fluxes and rates by combining results from multiple observations of the same source.
regphystocel can be used to convert regions stored in physical coordinates (including FITS region files), into ds9 style region files in celestial coordinates.
A major update to dax (CIAO in ds9) includes several additional CIAO tools, improvements to fitting with sherpa including a new parameter model editor GUI. See also the new dax guide.
Sherpa includes changes released in Sherpa 4.12.1 and Sherpa 4.12.2 such as:
Update to version 12.10.1s of the XSPEC Model library.
Use of Jupyter notebooks to display HTML tables or plots
ahelp files have been updated to match the Python docstrings.
Sherpa is also available as a stand alone system, accessible from the Sherpa GitHub repository or from the standalone Sherpa page.
CIAO 4.13 is distributed for the following platforms (see also the Platform Support page):
Linux 64 bit
Apple macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) through macOS 10.15 (Catalina)
The CXC has done limited testing on macOS 11 (Big Sur). We do not expect there to be any problems with either the conda edition or the ciao-install edition with this configuration.
The CXC has not done any testing on macOS 11 (Big Sur) running on the new Apple M1 chip. At this time we are relying on Apple's Rosetta2 emulation layer to provide support for this architecture.
Chandra CALDB 4.9.4
Chandra Calibration Database (CALDB) version 4.9.4 is an upgrade to the Chandra CalDB, which includes the following items:
ACIS CONTAM version N0014, which modifies the previous version with enhanced C-K, O-K, and F-K optical depths effective beginning in year 2018 and beyond, but has no effect at earlier times;
HRC-S QEU version N0014, a series of 29 time-displaced files, which replaces the previous N0013 QEU library, adding two additional files with 2020 effective dates;
LETG/HRC-S PI Region Filter file version N0002, to be paired with the most recently released HRC-S time-dependent gain maps (T_GMAPs) version N0003. Application of this filter in L2 reprocessing with the updated chandra_repro script in CIAO 4.13 will reduce the HRC-S background by 30-50%.
To understand if this CALDB upgrade affects your current analysis check: "How CalDB 4.9.0 Affects Your Analysis"
Detailed information can be found in the Chandra Calibration Database website.
DS9 8.2
Version 8.2 of SAOImage DS9 include:
Support of “themes” including Dark Mode to control the appearance of all windows, plots, and dialogs
Improved support for Plot Dialogs, including a new control panel GUI. Multiple graphs per plot, multiple datasets per plot are supported and more
Support for the Chandra and the HST footprint servers
A new data exploration tool called Prism with much of the same functionality as the CIAO application prism (the CIAO application is expected to be withdrawn at the end of 2021)
MARX 5.5.1
The MARX 5.5.1 release (http://space.mit.edu/cxc/marx) upgrades the calibration data used by MARX to CalDB 4.9.4
MARX 5.5.1 is the version that should be used for cycle 23 proposal preparation.
See the MARX changelog for further details on this release.
As always please send questions and requests for enhancements to the CXC HELPDESK.
CIAO, CALDB and DS9 are a collaborative effort between the SAO/CXC Science Data Systems group, the SAO/CXC Data System Division, and MIT/CXC personnel. MARX is created and maintained by the MIT/CXC/HETG group.