A BATSE Earth‐Occultation Catalog of 0.03–1.8 MeV Gamma‐Ray Source Spectra and Light Curves for Phases 1–3 (1991–1994)
Open Access
- 1 March 2000
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Astronomical Society in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
- Vol. 127 (1) , 79-124
- https://doi.org/10.1086/313309
Abstract
Using the powerful Earth-occultation technique, long-term, nearly continuous monitoring of the entire low-energy gamma-ray sky is now possible with the advent of BATSE, the Burst and Transient Source Experiment on board the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO). In this paper, we present a catalog of 34 moderately strong gamma-ray sources measured by BATSE. It consists of 0.03-1.8 MeV photon spectra averaged over weeks and months, and light curves of the 35-200 keV flux, with 1 day resolution, covering the first three phases of the CGRO mission (1991 May through 1994 October). These results have been obtained using the JPL Enhanced BATSE Occultation Package (EBOP) developed under the CGRO Guest Investigator Program. The EBOP concept and approach are also described in some depth. This paper presents highlights extracted from a large EBOP database which has now been archived at the Compton Observatory Science Support Center (COSSC). This database contains a complete record of ~1200 daily source count rates in 14 energy channels along with the corresponding Poisson and systematic errors for 64 sources, including 30 not described here. An interface to XSPEC is included in the archive allowing conversion from count rates to photon fluxes. This paper therefore serves also as a reference and entree into the archive and provides an index and guide for those investigators using the EBOP system and database for their respective scientific investigations.Keywords
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