Proposal tools

The feasibility checking and observation planning tools necessary to propose for Guest Observer time in AO-1 are either provided or linked to from this page.

Proposal Planning

Simulators

The simulators are listed in order of complexity (least to most) .The XMM UHB offers some guidelines as to which simulators may be necessary for feasibility checking, dependant on the complexity of the proposed observations.

PIMMS - An X-ray flux/count rate convertor, incorporating past and current mission data. PIMMS is now available from the Leicester Database and Archive System (LEDAS) as either the command-line interface distribution, or via a web interface as W3PIMMS.

XSPEC - The X-ray spectral fitting package. Can be used to simulate the X-ray spectra of objects, which is very useful for feasibility studies. Needs calibration files as input (see below).

QUICKSIM - A "PIMMS" for EPIC imaging. QuickSim allows the input of sources with user-defined criteria, or seeding by a ROSAT HRI image, as the basis of a simulation of either EPIC-pn or EPIC-MOS FITS event files. All potential users should firstly download the gzipped Quicksim handbook (note - this also contains user notes for Procsim - see below). Users on a solaris or dec/OSF platform should then download the Quicksim code, quicksim_code.tar. Users of linux have a separate release, quicksim_linux.tar. A third tar file (quicksim_demos.tar) contains the test files alluded to in the handbook. All tar files contain unix compressed files. (Courtesy S. Snowden, NASA-GSFC)

The XMM Science Simulator (SciSim) - The official XMM science simulator. SciSim uses a ray-tracing method to simulate data for each instrument on XMM for any given observational criterium.

PROCSIM - This is a companion tool to Quicksim, which takes the ODF output of SciSim and converts it into a single photon event file for each instrument, in the same format as the output from Quicksim. Further documentation can be found in the Quicksim handbook. We are distributing Procsim as the unix-compressed fortran code for either Solaris and dec/OSF platforms (procsim.f.Z) or for linux (procsim_linux.f.Z). (Courtesy S. Snowden, NASA-GSFC)

Other tools

Visibility checker - each XMM observation must be checked by the guest observer for the potential visibility of the target. This tools is provided by the XMM SOC to perform this task.

Calibration files - For use in XSPEC simulations of on-axis source spectra. More details available from our dedicated calibration files page.

Star catalogues - Users must ensure that there are no bright stars in the field-of-view that could be potentially damaging to the OM (see the UHB for further details), or that may contaminate their EPIC or RGS fields. This can be checked by searching public databases and archives such as LEDAS, or source catalogues such as SIMBAD or the USNO - A1.0 star catalogue.

Proposal Submission

Proposals are all expected to be submitted online using the XMM Remote Proposal Submission (XRPS) system. UK guest observers are strongly advised to submit their proposals in advance of the AO-1 deadline as the system is previously untested under heavy usage conditions. Please remember to read the Proposer's Guide and XRPS manual before using XRPS.

XRPS