[vsnet-grb 76921] SuperAGILE GCN Notices now available
Bacodine
vxw at capella.gsfc.nasa.gov
Wed Jul 2 23:33:56 JST 2008
TO: All GCN Notice recipients
RE: AGILE Notice types are available
DT: 02 Jul 08
INTRODUCTION
The GCN system has been modified to incorporate the distribution
of positions of GRBs detected by the SuperAGILE instrument on the AGILE spacecraft.
Currently, there are only Notices of SuperAGILE detections; the GRID instrument
has not fully developed the detection processing yet.
About 5-10 times per year, there will be a GRB in the FOV (field of view)
of the SuperAGILE instrument that is bright enough to be localized.
AGILE transmits these localizations through the ORBCOMM system
to the ground within 30 min after the trigger.
The SuperAGILE team processes these messages and sends them to GCN.
If that burst position meets the site's filtering criteria,
then it gets that Notice.
Prior to this, the SuperAGILE team has been using only the Circulars
to distribute their burst detections. Now with the Notices, it will be
easier for the automated telescopes to make folow-up observations.
Like all the other sources of GRB information within the GCN system,
users can elect to receive (or not) each of these SuperAGILE Notice types.
ACTION ITEM:
If, after reviewing the information below, you want to receive
these AGILE Position notice types, please send me a request to have them enabled.
You can do this by forwarding this email to scott at milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov
NOTICE TYPES, CONTENT, and PURPOSE
There are 4 SuperAGILE Notice types. They are:
1) Wakeup Position Notice contains the RA,Dec location for the burst detected by SuperAGILE.
They are issued 0 or 1 times per burst.
Since the Wakeup position is based on the least-possible amount of data in the processing
(just a small initial portion of the burst's lightcurve),
it has the lowest significance in the localization process.
The uncertainty in the position is ~30 arcmin for the bursts.
2) Ground Position Notice contains the RA,Dec location that has undergone
further automated analysis and processing on the ground.
They are issued 0 or 1 times per burst.
This reduces the location uncertainty range to 3 arcmin.
The downlinking and the automated processing means the total time delay is 1-2 hours.
3) Refined Position Notice: For some bursts, a third and final notice will be generated
when humans have gotten into the loop and made some improvement (refinement)
into the location calculation.
The typical time delay ranges from 2 to 5 hours.
They are issued 0 or 1 times per burst (and on rare occaisions more than 1 per burst).
4) Test Notice is identical in format and content to the 3 Position Notices
except that the test notices contain computer-generated RA,Dec locations and all the other fields.
These test notices are generated by the GCN computer every ~3.6 hrs.
They allow the receiving site to practice on the Position Notice types.
POSITION TYPES, ERRORS, and TIME_DELAYS:
The automated on-board SuperAGILE flight software
will generate GRB position notifications in real time.
(In addition, human-involved analyses of the data may sometimes result
in a revised position within a few hours after the burst.)
The timescales and localization precisions of the various notice types are as follows:
TIME SINCE LOCATION
TYPE BURST PRECISION COMMENTS
========= ============ ========== ========
Wakeup ~30 min ~30 arcmin On-board procesing
Ground 1-2 hrs 3 arcmin Ground processing
Refined ~2-5 hr 3 arcmin Humans in the loop
SEQUENCE OF ACTIVITIES:
The sequence of activities for a typical burst follows:
1) The SuperAGILE instrument detects a burst (a trigger).
2) The Wakeup message is generated and transmitted.
3) Then after some ground processing, the Ground message is generated and sent.
4) And finally, after further ground processing (usually involving humans in the loop),
a Refined message is generated and sent.
THE SUPERAGILE-to-GCN-to-WORLD PROCEDURE:
All 3 types of SuperAGILE messages go through or originate in the SuperAGILE intrument operations
and are then set to GCN.
GCN reformats the messages into the standard GCN_Notice formats, and
distributes them to the sites using the usual distribution methods and filtering.
The additional time_delay for the GCN processing is never more than 0.2 sec.
ARCHIVE STORAGE:
The GCN/AGILE Notices are archived within the GCN website in the Table of AGILE GRBs.
http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/agile_grbs.html
MORE INFORMATION:
Can be found at: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/agile.html
NOTICE EXAMPLE:
Here is an example of a full-format email SuperAGILE Wake-up Notice:
TITLE: GCN/SuperAGILE NOTICE
NOTICE_DATE: Sat 17 May 08 15:17:39 UT
NOTICE_TYPE: SuperAGILE GRB Ground Position
TRIGGER_NUM: 474
GRB_RA: 321.638d {+21h 26m 33s} (J2000),
321.738d {+21h 26m 57s} (current),
321.002d {+21h 24m 01s} (1950)
GRB_DEC: +1.788d {+01d 47' 17"} (J2000),
+1.822d {+01d 49' 21"} (current),
+1.571d {+01d 34' 14"} (1950)
GRB_ERROR: 3.00 [arcmin radius, statistical plus systematic]
GRB_INTEN: 2707.347 1383.584 [X & Y cnts]
GRB_SIGNIF: 16.50 12.15 [sigma]
GRB_DATE: 14467 TJD; 02 DOY; 08/01/02
GRB_TIME: 50795.30 SOD {14:06:35.30} UT
SUN_POSTN: 54.83d {+03h 39m 20s} +19.51d {+19d 30' 50"}
SUN_DIST: 92.31 [deg] Sun_angle= 6.2 [hr] (West of Sun)
MOON_POSTN: 206.72d {+13h 46m 52s} -15.98d {-15d 58' 30"}
MOON_DIST: 114.53 [deg]
MOON_ILLUM: 95 [%]
GAL_COORDS: 54.83,-32.88 [deg] galactic lon,lat of the burst (or transient)
ECL_COORDS: 324.61, 15.98 [deg] ecliptic lon,lat of the burst (or transient)
COMMENTS: SuperAGILE GRB Coordinates.
COMMENTS: This is a GRB.
(Please note that the actual values in this example are made up.)
The socket packets contents can be found at:
http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/sock_pkt_def_doc.html
Sincerely,
Scott
Scott Barthelmy NASA-GSFC, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD 20771
PHONE: 301-286-3106 (office) CELL: 301-346-3733
FAX: 301-286-1684 (1st choice, -1682 2nd choice)
EMAIL: scott at lheamail.gsfc.nasa.gov
PAGER: 3013463733 at cingularme.com
WEB: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn
///////////////////////////// Your Current Configuration ////////////////////////
Site_name: VSNET
Lon,Lat= 135.75 35.00
Distribution_method: EMAIL Attachment_format: NONE
Address: vsnet-grb at ooruri.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Filter: ALL
Error_limit= 360.100 [deg, diameter]
Delta_T_limit= 999.900 [hr]
Swift_Trigger_ID_filter: Disabled
Sources & Notice Types/Subtypes:
RXTE-PCA_Alert_wont: Enabled
RXTE-PCA_Alert_will: Enabled
RXTE-PCA_nosaw: Enabled
RXTE-PCA_saw: Enabled
RXTE-ASM: Enabled
IPN_POS: Enabled
ALEXIS: Enabled
RXTE-ASM_TRANS: Enabled
HETE_S/C_ALERT: Enabled
HETE_S/C_UPDATE: Enabled
HETE_S/C_LAST: Enabled
HETE_GND_ANA: Enabled
HETE_TEST: Disabled
TYPE2_TEST: Disabled
INTEGRAL_Test_notices: Disabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_TEST: Disabled
AGILE_GRB_TEST: Disabled
INTEGRAL_POINTDIR: Disabled
INTEGRAL_SPIACS: Enabled
INTEGRAL_WAKEUP: Enabled
INTEGRAL_REFINED: Enabled
INTEGRAL_OFFLINE: Enabled
GRB_CNTRPART: Disabled
MILAGRO_POS: Disabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_ALERT: enabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_POS: enabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_POS_NACK: enabled
SWIFT_BAT_SUBTHRESH_POS: Disabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_LIGHTCURVE: enabled
SWIFT_FOM_2OBS: enabled
SWIFT_SC_2SLEW: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_POS: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_POS_NACK: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_SPECTRUM: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_IMAGE: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_LIGHTCURVE: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_IMAGE: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_SRCLIST: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_POS: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_POS_NACK: Disabled
SWIFT_BAT_GRB_LC_PROC: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_SPECTRUM_PROC: enabled
SWIFT_XRT_IMAGE_PROC: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_IMAGE_PROC: enabled
SWIFT_UVOT_SRCLIST_PROC: enabled
SWIFT_FULL_DATA_INIT: enabled
SWIFT_FULL_DATA_UPDATE: enabled
SWIFT_POINTDIR: enabled
SWIFT_BAT_TRANS: Disabled
SWIFT_BAT_SLEW_POS: Disabled
AGILE_GRB_WAKEUP_POS: Disabled
AGILE_GRB_PROMPT_POS: Disabled
AGILE_GRB_REFINED_POS: Disabled
When requesting changes to your configuration,
it helps if you refer to your site_name.
More information about the vsnet-grb
mailing list