Features of the PROS software

A few new features and enhancements to the standard IRAF system have been introduced with the PROS software:

• extensions: Many IRAF tasks will automatically supply the correct default extension for the expected input. In addition to these, the PROS software differentiates files of the same kind ( e.g. , tables), with compound extensions, the first part giving the PROS type, with the syntax _ xxx ( e.g. , _ fft), the second the IRAF file type ( e.g. , .tab).

  Default compound extensions are used by the PROS tasks when no extension is given for the output file name. Most PROS tasks allow the output file name to be defaulted, with the convention that the output file name will be composed of the input `root' name, plus the default extension specific to the task. In general this is obtained by typing a carriage return. For example, if ``rp110590.qp" is the input image file to imcnts, the default output file will be ``rp110590_cnt.tab''( see Radial Profiles and Projections for details of obtaining count distributions.)

• directory path names: Directories in IRAF are delimited by ``/" or ``$". If a file is specified as `directory/filename<input ext>', the output filename will be
  `directory/filename<output ext>. For example, if the input file to the imcnts task is /pool7/rp110590.qp, the default output table would be /pool7/rp110590_cnt.tab. For the output table to be written in the current directory, the ``." string should be used instead of the null string. If the response to ``output filename'' is a carriage return or ``'' (the null string), the directory names will be retained. Notable exceptions are the spectral tasks, in particular the fitting routines, in which the output table is written to the current directory by default.

• regions : Spatial filtering is accomplished by means of region masks, in which each mask value corresponds either to a single geometric shape, or to two or more geometric shapes combined according to the rules of boolean algebra. Regions are used in virtually all PROS analysis tasks that use image data. Geometric shapes allowed are: circle, box, ellipse, polygon, annulus, pie slice, and rotated box ( for more information type help regions).

• filters : The introduction of QPOE files, with spatial, temporal and energy information for each photon, allows the filtering of photons in time intervals or energy bands, together with spatial filtering. Most PROS tasks that work on QPOE files accept filtering of photons at run time (cf. energy filtering, .
• World Coordinate System: RA and Dec.
• Tables: Analysis results are written to tables.

More specific and detailed discussions of the PROS features can be found in the on-line help files, and in the on-line science specifications. In addition, the following files may be useful:

XRAY --- bugs, coords, explain_errors, explain_xdata, explain_screens, exposure, file_compare, filter, extensions, qpoe, missions, release_xray, regions, prf (or psf), qpmerge

XSPECTRAL --- models_spectral, using_spectral, pspc_fitting

XSPATIAL --- prf (or psf)

DETECT --- explain_detect, using_detect

XPLOT --- using_xplot

TIMCOR --- using_timcor, utc

To obtain help, type `help filename', e.g., ``help coords''.

• Coordinate Systems
• Treatment of Errors
• Possible Pitfalls