Search

The X-ray observatory XMM-Newton is now in orbit for more than 5 years. The performance of the EPIC-pn CCD camera has been monitored since and its calibration has been improved steadily. We report in this presentation on our recent investigations in different calibration issues: Data of the on-board Fe-55 calibration source were used for monitoring the charge transfer efficiency (CTE) degradation. A special calibration observation of the line-rich supernova remnant Cas-A in the extended Full Frame Mode was used to refine the energy calibration in this mode. Together with ground measurements, a non-routine observation of the calibration target N132D will lead to an improvement of the CTE correction of the Large Window Mode.

The great collecting area of the mirrors coupled with the high quantum efficiency of the EPIC detectors have made XMM-Newton the most sensitive X-ray observatory flown to date. This is particularly evident during slew exposures which, while giving only 15 seconds of on-source time, actually constitute a 2-10 keV survey ten times deeper than current "all-sky" catalogues. Here we report on progress towards making a catalogue of slew detections constructed from the full, 0.2-12 keV energy band and discuss the challenges associated with processing the slew data. The fast (90 degrees per hour) slew speed results in images which are smeared, by different amounts depending on the readout mode, effectively changing the form of the point spread function. The extremely low background in slew images changes the optimum source searching criteria such that searching a single image using the full energy band is seen to be more sensitive than splitting the data into discrete energy bands. False detections due to optical loading by bright stars, the wings of the PSF in very bright sources and single-frame detector flashes are considered and techniques for identifying and removing these spurious sources from the final catalogue are outlined. Finally, the attitude reconstruction of the satellite during the slewing manoeuver is complex. We discuss the implications of this on the positional accuracy of the catalogue., 12 pages, 16 figures, presented at the SPIE 2005 conference, San Diego, CA