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XMM-Newton-NEWS  #136,    28-Jun-2012

XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre at
ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre,
P.O. Box - Apdo. 78, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain

SOC Home Page:	http://xmm.esac.esa.int/
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Contents:

• Version 12.0.1 of the Science Analysis System (SAS) released
• ESA Research Fellowships in Space Science at ESAC

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Version 12.0.1 of the Science Analysis System (SAS) released

A patch to SAS 12.0.0 released on 30 May 2012 has been issued, due to the reasons mentioned below, and taking the opportunity to do some upgrades also listed:

• fixing a bug in the effective area generation (arfgen) for PN burst mode data
• initialising variables in the epatplot task, which otherwise can lead to crashes (only in some of the binaries distributed)
• establishing "ellbeta" (aka 2D-PSF) as default PSF mode parameter in the call to edetect_chain
• upgrading the documentation of several tasks

More details are given at:

     http://xmm.esac.esa.int/sas/12.0.1/documentation/releasenotes/xmmsas_12.0.1.shtml

For practical reasons, we do not distribute the patch packages for the diverse binaries this time, but the full SAS 12.0.1.

SAS 12.0.1 can be downloaded from:

     http://xmm.esac.esa.int/sas/current/download/

ESA Research Fellowships in Space Science at ESAC

Postdoctoral fellowships in the area of Astronomy and Astrophysics related to the X-ray observatory XMM-Newton are tenable at the XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre in the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) located in Villafranca del Castillo, near Madrid, Spain.

The European Space Agency awards several postdoctoral fellowships each year. The aim of these fellowships is to provide young scientists, holding a PhD or the equivalent degree, with the means of performing Space Science research in fields related to the ESA Science and Robotic Exploration Programmes. The fellowships have a duration of two years.

Applications are now solicited for fellowships in Space Science to begin in the fall of 2013. Preference will be given to applications submitted by candidates within five years of receiving their PhD. Candidates not holding a PhD yet are encouraged to apply, but they must provide evidence of receiving their degree before starting the fellowship.

Research opportunities with XMM-Newton science staff include: studies of the high energy emission of novae, (massive) stars, galaxies, and AGN using XMM-Newton data. Working at ESAC within the XMM-Newton team gives the unique opportunity of being in contact with the calibration scientists, the developers of the analysis software and the User Support Group.

Please contact Norbert Schartel ( ) for more details on ESA Research Fellowships related to XMM-Newton.

The deadline for the current call for applications is

      1 October 2012

More information on the ESA Research Fellowship programme in Space Science, on the conditions and eligibility, as well as the application form can be found at:

     http://www.rssd.esa.int/fellowship



Yours sincerely,
XMM-Newton SOC