- ID:
- ivo://nasa.heasarc/ariel5
- Title:
- Ariel V All-Sky Monitor
- Short Name:
- ARIEL5
- Date:
- 11 Apr 2025
- Publisher:
- NASA/GSFC HEASARC
- Description:
- The All Sky Monitor was one of six X-ray instruments on the Ariel 5 satellite. The satellite was launched into a low inclination (2.8 degrees), nearly circular orbit (altitude ~520 km) on 15 October 1974. Ariel 5 was actively pointed so that objects of interest could be observed by the four instruments aligned along its spin axis. The ASM was mounted 90 degrees from the spin axis; the satellite had a spin period of 6 seconds. The ASM operated from October 18, 1974 to March 10, 1980. The ASM instrument, built by the Lab for High Energy Astrophysics at NASA- Goddard Space Flight Center, provided continuous coverage of the entire sky, except for a 20 degree band straddling the satellite's equator. The ASM was intended to act as an early detection system for transients, and to monitor the variability of bright ( > 0.2 Crab) galactic sources. The instrument consisted of a pair of X-ray pinhole cameras, each covering opposite halves of the sky, with gas-filled imaging proportional counters. Position determination of sources was accomplished through position-sensitive anode wires and satellite rotation. Each camera had a 1-cm<sup>2</sup> aperture. Overall telemetry constraints limited the duty cycle for any given source to 1 percent. With the low telemetry rate provided for this instrument (1 bit/s), temporal and spectral information were sacrificed for the sake of all-sky coverage. Hence, spectral information was limited to a single 3 - 6 keV bandpass, and temporal resolution was limited to the satellite orbital period, ~100 minutes. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
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- ID:
- ivo://nasa.heasarc/ariel3a
- Title:
- 3rd Ariel-V SSI Catalog
- Short Name:
- ARIEL3A
- Date:
- 11 Apr 2025
- Publisher:
- NASA/GSFC HEASARC
- Description:
- The 3rd Ariel-V SSI Catalog contains a list of X-ray sources detected by the University of Leicester's Sky Survey Instrument (SSI) on the Ariel-V satellite, and published (in 2 papers) as the Ariel-V (3A) Catalog: Warwick et al. 1981, MNRAS, 197, 865 (the low galactic latitude sources) and McHardy et al. 1981, MNRAS, 197, 893 (the high galactic latitude sources). The catalog is based on observations extending over a 5.5 year period from 1974 October until 1980 March. The SSI had a field of view of 0.75 by 10.6 degrees (FWHM) and had an energy range from 2 to 18 keV. A detailed description of the SSI is given by Villa et al. 1976, MNRAS, 176, 609. For a more detailed discussion of how the 3A Catalog was created, please refer to the Warwick et al. (1981) and McHardy et al. (1981) papers. This online catalog was created by the HEASARC in March 2003 based on the merger of two original tables originally obtained from the ADC website (<a href="https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/heasarc/dbase/misc_files/ariel3a/hilat.dat">https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/heasarc/dbase/misc_files/ariel3a/hilat.dat</a> and <a href="https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/heasarc/dbase/misc_files/ariel3a/lowlat.dat">https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/heasarc/dbase/misc_files/ariel3a/lowlat.dat</a>). This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
