XMM-Newton Data Center at MPE Description of an EPIC MOS events file

On this page the column in an event file are described. The contents of an event file can be viewed by the FTOOL task fdump. First this task will list the header information and then the information about the events. The event information is organized in columns. A standard event file for the EPIC MOS in IMAGING mode contains the following columns:

• TIME: Event time in seconds (to be precise, it is the read-out time of the frame). The zero point is 01-01-1998.
• RAWX, RAWY: Raw CCD pixel coordinates
• DETX, DETY: Detector coordinates (in units of 0.05 arcsec)
• X, Y: Projected sky coordinates, relative to the nominal pointing position (in units of 0.05 arcsec)
• PHA: Pulse Height Analizer, or the uncorrected event channel
• PI: Pulse Height Invariant, or the corrected and recombined (for the non single events) event energies.
• FLAG: Event quality flag (0 is the best)
• PATTERN: 1-byte integer pattern code (to decrypt the code see Pattern definition of the EPIC MOS) and the manual for the task emevents. Only Pattern 0-12 should be used for science analysis.
• CCDNR: CCD number (1-7 or 11-17)

© X-Ray Group at MPE (group)
last update:2008-01-10, editor of this page:Frank Haberl, Dirk Grupe