compbb documentation

Ken Ebisawa pointed out that the v12 description of the compbb model did not include a change made to the v11 help. I've corrected this and updated the on-line page.

gfortran on the mac

To get gfortran using fink get the package gcc42 or gcc43.

plot delchi

Jeremy Sanders points out that the label for delchi plots is wrong or at least misleading. Fixed this by changing the entry in plotLabels.dat. Note that the label is now hardwired for the chi-squared statistic however the delchi plot doesn't make any sense for other statistics.

Jeremy also noted that the y-axis label is a long way to the left and this looks strange. The reason for the position is that with LAB ROT we need to leave space to write numbers of the form
A x 10^(-B). Curiously, we are defaulting to rotated labels for 2-panel plots but unrotated labels for 1-panel plots. I've no idea why. Note that the easy way to move around the position of the y-axis label is
PLT> lab pos y 3.0

log files in xspec

Fixed bug that was adding a "#" to the next line instead of the current line of log file output. This is a partial fix to issue 1024. Input when setting parameter values (in model or newpar) is still not echoed to the log file - problem is in ModelContainer::setParameterFromPrompt.

Update: had to back this change out because it doesn't work with tcerr, which is not buffered and hence passes one character at a time to TclIO::write. Craig worked out how to fix xsLog.cxx to fix the problem.

Changing NOMAD password

Since I now have to change this every 60 days these notes are to help me remember what to change so that my Thunderbird e-mail keeps working.

1. Change NOMAD password on the webmail.nasa.gov site
2. Using Firefox Preferences remove saved password for webmail.nasa.gov
3. Using Thunderbird Preferences remove saved password for smtp://gsfc...
4. Click on NOMAD inbox and when prompted enter new password. Check the Password Manager box.
5. Restart Thunderbird.
6. Send an e-mail and when prompted enter new password. Check the Password Manager box.

Also need to fix CNE wireless connection. Open Internet Connect, go to 802.1X then "staff CNE wireless" in the configuration menu. Enter the new password in the appropriate box.

xspec priorities

I've created a Wiki page with a list of xspec priority enhancements. These are divided into large and small projects. At the moment they are not priority-ordered but I will add that along with additional information on the large projects.

xspec issue fixes

Updated documentation to match recent enhancements and additional models. Note that the description of the bvapec model is now included along with the bapec model, not in a separate file.

Fixed a plotting bug. The green line marking 0 or 1 in the res, ratio, chi etc. plots did not go all the way across the plot if a rescale was done so that only part of the x-range of the data was included. Note that a rescale to start at an x-value below the initial data will not draw the green line for the x values below the start of the data.

XMM ao8 webspec files

I've replaced the XMM rmfs and arfs in WebSpec with the appropriate ones for AO8.

super-exponential cutoff absorption

At the request of Jean Ballet added a super-exponential cutoff absorption model to the additional models page. This is useful for fitting gamma-ray observations of pulsars (eg Nel & de Jager 1995).

Also added model to the development version so it will be included in the next release.

energies command and table models

Roderick Johnstone pointed out that recent bug fixes have broken use of the energies command for table models. This is fixed in patch 12.4.0an.

added new models to development version

Added the following contributed additional models to the development version so they become standard in the next release : diskir, cflux, nsmax, zxipcf, swind1, kerrdisk, kerrconv, nthcomp.