Requirements

• LHEASOFT, v5 or higher (http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/corp/software.html)

• ximgfit (http://xassist.pha.jhu.edu/ximgfit)

• XAssist itself

• For Chandra analysis, ciao v3.2 or later and the ciao scripts (most notably psextract for v3.2 and specextract for v3.3, usually included with ciao).

• For XMM-Newton analysis, XMMSAS v5.3.3 or later is required, v5.4 or later recommended. Note that there are problems at the moment with Redhat 8.0 and XMMSAS. Also note that in some cases XAssist will have to be restarted when analyzing XMM data (e.g., it may fail at the "detect" stage, in which case remove the .xassist directory and re-run xassist).

• In all cases, relevant calibration data must be present:
  • CALDB for ASCA or ROSAT (see below for url to allow remote access to the CALDB installation at HEASARC)

  • CALDB for Chandra (required for CIAO)

  • CCF files for XMM-Newton (download from xmm.vilspa.esa.es).