XMM-Newton Data Analysis

input file: P0123700101M2S002MIEVLI0000.FIT.
output file: image.fits
instrument: EPIC MOS, IMAGING mode

This page will give a brief description how to create a simple image from an EPIC MOS event file. This description will focus on the use of the XMMSAS task evselect. You can also use the XMMSAS GUI task xmmselect or the FTOOLS command f2dhisto. The latter two ways are described in detail on the EPIC PN simple image page. You can also use a script file to create your image.
The task evselect reads the input events file P0123700101M2S002MIEVLI0000.FIT and creates an output image image.fits in sky pixels X and Y with a binning in both direction of 100 sky-pixels (this corresponds to 5").
   evselect table=P0123700101M2S002MIEVLI0000.FIT \
            xcolumn=X ycolumn=Y imagebinning=binSize \
            ximagebinsize=100 yimagebinsize=100 withimageset=true imageset=image.fits 
The image can be now displayed by saotng or ds9:
    ds9 image.fits
The final image looks like this:
XMM EPIC MOS image
If you have to create many images, it may be a good idea to write a script file. In this way you do not have to type the long command line for the evselect task over and over again. An example for a shell script to create an image is given here.