File Utilities
The first tools available are in a suite of general "file utilities," those for reading the FITs files, dumping the header or the data to an ASCII file, finding the names of the data columns, etc. These are the basic tools for looking at the information and data in the FITs files. In the upper left quadrant you will see a number of tools under the "File Utilities" header. If you select one by clicking on its radio button, you will get a short description of what the tool does in the lower box. For a more detailed description (including the function of each of the parameters), select the tool and click on the "help" button.
The tools available to you are a subset of the complete suite of tools available at the LHEA. Several data sets have been stored in the Teachers Hera users' account for your use. The data set gx301-2.lc is timing information (or "light curve" data, hence the ".lc" extension) of observations of the source GX301-2 by the Rossi X-ray Timing Experiment (RXTE), and it is what we will use to start our explorations. GX301-2 is a system where a rotating neutron star is in orbit with a supergiant B star. First select this data set, by clicking on the radio button next to "gx301-2.lc." To execute a tool, you will click on the tool's radio button (on the left side of the Hera interface), and then on the "Run" button.
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