The Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO) was the second of NASA's Great Observatories. It was launched on April 5, 1991, from Space Shuttle Atlantis. It operated successfully for 9 years, and then was safely de-orbited and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on June 4, 2000. Compton had four instruments that covered an unprecedented six decades of the electromagnetic spectrum, from 30 keV to 30 GeV. In order of increasing spectral energy coverage, these instruments were the Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), the Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (OSSE), the Imaging Compton Telescope (CompTel), and the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET). BATSE viewed the full sky, as a transient monitor and is thus not included in this database table of pointed telescope observations. Also, EGRET and CompTel had wide fields of view, about 30 degrees, and, as such, viewed multiple targets per X-axis pointing. OSSE could be slewed (about one axis) independently from the spacecraft, so it typically viewed 2 targets per spacecraft Z-axis orientation, or "viewing period." Viewing periods were typically two weeks long. This database table contains the CGRO observations for Cycles 1 through 9. The Cycle 1 observations for EGRET and COMPTEL were part of the All-Sky Survey with no defined targets. This database table was last updated in November 2001. The information contained therein was provided by the Compton Observatory Science Support Center (COSSC). Galactic coordinates were added to the table by the HEASARC in August 2005. Duplicate entries in the table were removed in June 2019. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
This database table contains all of the observations made by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO, formerly known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility or AXAF) as part of the Performance Verification and Calibration (PVC) phase and also contains all of the subsequent Cycles' Guaranteed Time Observers (GTO) and General Observer (GO) targets, and any Director's Discretionary Time (DDT) targets that have been observed. It also includes scheduled and as-yet-not-scheduled targets. The HEASARC updates this database table on a twice-weekly basis by querying the database table at the Chandra X-Ray Center (CXC) website, as discussed in the Provenance section. For observations whose status is 'archived', data products can be retrieved from the HEASARC's mirror of the CXC's Chandra Data Archive (CDA). The CXC should be acknowledged as the source of Chandra data. The PVC phase was during the first few months of the CXO mission; some of the calibration observations that are for monitoring purposes will be performed in later mission cycles. All calibration data (entries with Type = CAL in this database) are placed immediately into the CXO public data archive at the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center (CXC); please see the Web page at <a href="http://asc.harvard.edu/">http://asc.harvard.edu/</a> for more information on the CXC data archive). GTO observations during Cycle 1 or any subsequent Cycle will probably occupy 100% of months 3-4, 30% of months 5-22, and 15% of the available time for the remainder of the mission. Guaranteed Time Observers will have the same proprietary data rights as General Observers (i.e., their data will be placed in the public CXC archive 12 months after they have received the data in usable form). For detailed information on the Chandra Observatory and datasets see: <pre> <a href="http://cxc.harvard.edu/">http://cxc.harvard.edu/</a> for general Chandra information <a href="http://cxc.harvard.edu/cda/">http://cxc.harvard.edu/cda/</a> for the Chandra Data Archive <a href="http://cxc.harvard.edu/cal/">http://cxc.harvard.edu/cal/</a> for calibration information <a href="http://cxc.harvard.edu/caldb/">http://cxc.harvard.edu/caldb/</a> for the calibration database <a href="http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/">http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/</a> for data analysis <a href="http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/">http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/</a> for analysis software <a href="http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/threads/">http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/threads/</a> for analysis threads <a href="http://cda.harvard.edu/chaser/">http://cda.harvard.edu/chaser/</a> for WebChaSeR </pre> The HEASARC updates this database table on a twice-weekly basis based on information obtained from the Chandra Data Archive at the CXC website. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
This database table contains results from the LE telescope for only the central 6 arc-minutes. It is the same as the CMA database in every other respect. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
Copernicus was the third satellite in the OAO program. It was launched the 21 august of 1972 and operated till 1981. The main instrument was an ultraviolet telescope with a spectrometer to measure interstellar absorption lines in the spectra of stellar objects. However it carried also an X-ray experiment provided by University College of London/MSSL consisted in 4 co-aligned experiments sensitive in the 1-10 keV energy range. This database accesses the raw FITS file containing data obtained from the UCL X-ray Experiment (UCLXE) package on board Copernicus. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
The European Space Agency's satellite COS-B was dedicated to gamma-ray astronomy in the energy range 50 MeV to 5 Gev and carried a single spark chamber telescope with approximately a 20 degree field of view. COS-B operated in a highly eccentric polar orbit with apogee around 90000 km between 17 August 1975 and 25 April 1982. During this operational lifetime, COS-B made 65 observations, 15 of which were devoted to high (>20 deg) galactic latitudes. The COSBRAW database table is a log of the 65 COS-B observation intervals and contains target names, sky coordinates start times and other information taken from the final COS-B database produced by ESA in 1985. This final database consisted of three basic datasets: `OBSLI`, a dataset describing each observation period, typically a month; `OURLI`, a dataset describing each uninterrupted observation interval, lasting between 10 minutes and 10 hours; and `GAMLI`, a dataset containing records for each accepted gamma-ray photon. These three data sets were combined into FITS format images at NASA/GSFC. The images were formed by making the center pixel of a 1024 x 1024 pixel image correspond to the RA and DEC given in the `OBSLI` file. Each photon's RA and DEC was converted to a relative pixel in the image. This was done by using Aitoff projections. All the raw data from these three COS-B files are now stored in 65 FITS files accessible with BROWSE software in the database COSBRAW. The images can be accessed and plotted using XIMAGE and other columns of the FITS file extensions can be plotted with the FTOOL FPLOT. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
The FPCSFITS database is a listing of the Focal Plane Crystal Spectrometer photon event data. It was created in October 1992 and contains one entry for each of the 436 FPCS FITS files. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
The HRIPHOT database contains information from the High Resolution Imager aboard HEAO-2, the Einstein Observatory, in Event List Format. Einstein incorporated a high-resolution X-ray telescope and a focal plane assembly capable of positioning at its focus one of four instruments: a high- resolution imaging detector (HRI), a broader-field imaging proportional counter (IPC), a solid state spectrometer (SSS), and a Bragg crystal spectrometer (FPCS). Einstein (HEAO-2) was launched on November 13, 1978, and operated successfully until April 1981. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
The IPCPHOT database contains information from the Imaging Proportional Counter aboard HEAO-2, the Einstein Observatory, in Event List Format. Einstein incorporated a high-resolution X-ray telescope and a focal plane assembly capable of positioning at its focus one of four instruments: a high-resolution imaging detector (HRI), a broader-field imaging proportional counter (IPC), a solid state spectrometer (SSS), and a Bragg crystal spectrometer (FPCS). Einstein (HEAO-2) was launched on November 13, 1978, and operated successfully until April 1981. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
This database table gives access to the IPC unscreened data set, which includes files in the event list format together with auxiliary files. This data set was generated by the Einstein Data Center and delivered to the HEASARC on CD-ROM. The Einstein Observatory (HEAO-2) operated from November 1978 to April 1981. Einstein carried the first fully imaging X-ray telescope in space and operated in pointing mode. The Imaging Proportional Counter had a bandpass of 0.2-3.5 keV and was one of two detectors onboard used for imaging. During the Einstein lifetime more than 4000 targets were observed with the IPC. This database table was last updated by the HEASARC in August 2005. Galactic coordinates were added and some parameters were renamed to adhere to the HEASARC's current parameter naming conventions. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
The Einstein Observatory (also known as HEAO-2 or HEAO-B) was operational from 1978 November 13 until 1981 April 25 when the Einstein attitude control system failed. The Monitor Proportional Counter (MPC) was a non-focal plane instrument that monitored the 1 to 20 keV X-ray flux of the source(s) being observed simultaneously by the operational focal plane instrument. The MPC was a collimated proportional counter filled with argon and carbon dioxide. It had a circular field of view, 1.5 degrees in diameter (FWHM), which was co-aligned with the telescope. A 1.5 mil Be window sealed the gas in the detector and shielded the detector from ultraviolet radiation. The active area of the MPC was 667 square cm. The MPC obtained useful data from 1978 November 19 until 1981 April 17, with the exception of a 3-month period from 1980 Aug 27 to 1980 Dec 08 when operation was intermittent, due to Einstein Observatory attitude control problems. The characteristics of the MPC have been described in detail by Gaillardetz et al.(1979) and by Grindlay et al. (1980). One duplicate entry was removed from the HEASARC implementation of this catalog in June 2019. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .