Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21347201e&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #472.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.423
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The Chandra Source Catalog (CSC) is the definitive catalog of X-ray sources detected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. When compared to all previous and current X-ray missions, Chandra breaks the resolution barrier with an arcsecond scale on-axis point spread function. The combination of excellent spatial resolution, a reasonable field of view, and low instrumental background translate into a high detectable-source density, with low confusion and good astrometry. The wealth of information that can be extracted from identified serendipitous sources is a powerful and valuable resource for astronomy.
The aim of the CSC is to disseminate this wealth of information by characterizing the X-ray sky as seen by Chandra. The CSC provides simple access to Chandra data for individual sources or sets of sources matching user-specified search criteria. The catalog is intended to satisfy the needs of a broad-based group of scientists, including those who may be less familiar with astronomical data analysis in the X-ray regime. For each detected X-ray source, the catalog lists the source position and a detailed set of source properties, including multi-band aperture fluxes, X-ray colors and hardness ratios, spectra, temporal variability information, and source extent estimates. In addition to these traditional elements, the catalog includes file-based data products that can be manipulated interactively, including images, photon event lists, light curves, and spectra for each source individually from each observation in which a source is detected.
The first release of the CSC includes information for 150,000 X-ray sources detected in a subset of public imaging observations from the first eight years of the Chandra mission. Only point sources, and compact sources with extents < 30 arcsec, are included. Highly extended sources, and sources located in selected fields containing bright, highly extended sources, are excluded from this release.
This work is supported by NASA contract NAS8-03060 (CXC).
Anderson Craig S.
Bonaventura Nina R.
Chen Charlton J.
Davis Jesse E.
Doe Stephen M.
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