Compton Observatory Science Report #185, Thursday, September 7 1995 Chris Shrader, Compton Observatory Science Support Center Questions or comments can be sent to the CGRO SSC. Phone: 301/286-8434 e-mail: NSI_DECnet: GROSSC::SHRADER Internet: shrader@grossc.gsfc.nasa.gov Guest Investigator News Cycle 5 is set to being on October 3, 1995! At this point a majority of the Cycle-5 grants have been processed or are being processed at present. If you have observations approved for Cycle-5, and have not already done so, please check the observing plan and related information on GRONEWS (or in the appendages to your acceptance letter) to note when your observations will occur. If you have any special requirements, please communicate them to the SSC or to the appropriate CGRO Instrument Team. Changes to the observing plan due to targets of opportunity or unforseen spacecraft problems will be communicated to affected observers by the project scientist. The GRO-SSC and the BATSE team have worked out data-product definition issues and established a delivery schedule for BATSE Occultation history data (for about the 25 brightest sources) and Pulsar history data (about 15 sources). This follows extensive effort by the BATSE team to minimize possible effects of systematic errors inherent in the data. Data deliveries will begin in October of this year and the archive is expected to be up to date (i.e. about one year behind the observations) by about October 1996. The CGRO public data archive is accessible via the WWW at http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cossc/cossc.html or via anonymous ftp at cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov, /pub/data. The manuscript deadine for the 3'rd Compton Symposium is imminient - October 1, 1995! Related NASA News: The ASCA AO4 deadline for 1 yr of observations commencing Dec 1995 is Sept 15. Further details can be found on the asca gof WWW page http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/asca/ascagof.html Instrument Reports EGRET EGRET operations were normal this monthly period. Delivery of the final phase 3 data to the GRO SSC remains on schedule and delivery of the phase 4 preliminary data to the GRO SSC is now running ahead of schedule. Interaction with guest investigators continues at a good level. Preparations are well along for Cycle 5. All of the relevant information is in the computors, and we are ready to handle the cycle 5 data when it comes. Results on the high-energy gamma-ray galactic and extragalactic diffuse radiation determined from EGRET data were presented at the International Cosmic Ray Conference in Rome. On September 7, 1995, the pointing direction changes to the south Galactic pole, a region that has not had much exposure, and on September 20, 1995, the pointing direction moves to Galactic coordinates (l=18o, b=4o). This is the last pointing scheduled for Cycle 4. OSSE OSSE operations are normal. The slewing response to BATSE burst triggers has been enabled since 30 June. OSSE slewed in response to BATSE trigger #3772 on day 95/244 (TJD: 9961) at 00:25:45 UT and mapped the area for 3 hours. Recent observations are listed in the following table. View period Dates Target (owner) 427 22 Aug - 7 Sep MGC +8-11-11 (PI team) NGC 3227 (GI. R. Cameron) Upcoming observations in the planning stages (to close out cycle 4) are listed in the following table. View period Dates Target (owner) 428 7 Sept - 20 Sep NGC 253 (GI: Bhattacharya) Galactic plane/ Vela region (GI: Diehl) 429 20 Sep - 3 Oct AE AQR (GI: Bookbinder) SCO X-1 (PI team) Data up to viewing period 329 have been delivered to the Compton GRO Science Support Center archive. OSSE team members presented the following papers at the 24th International Cosmic Ray Conference: "Implications of the OSSE Observations of the Diffuse Galactic Gamma Ray Continuum" by J. Skibo et al. "Diffuse Galactic Gamma Ray Emission" by W.R. Purcell et al. "OSSE Spectra of X-Ray Binary Pulsars" by J.E. Grove et al. COMPTEL The COMPTEL instrument is performing well and continues routine observations. The collaboration has presented a number of papers at the 24th International Cosmic Ray Conference, currently underway in Rome. Among the recent results presented were those related to the diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Galaxy, including spectral-line emission at 1.8 MeV, the extragalactic diffuse radiation observed at MeV energies by COMPTEL, and recent results on sources such as the x-ray binary Cyg X-3, millisecond pulsars, and gamma-ray bursts, as well as a report on Bayseian analysis techniques applied to COMPTEL data. Two new conferences organized in part by members of the collaboration have just recently been announced. The 2nd INTEGRAL Workshop on "The Transparent Universe" will be held 16-20 September 1996, in St. Malo, France. Further information can be obtained via the anonymous ftp account, astro.estec.esa.nl/pub/integral_workshop, or by referring to the following pages on the WWW, at URL http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects/Integral/integral.html Also, a NATO ASI workshop on "The Many Faces of Neutron Stars" will be held in the Aeolian Islands (Sicily) from 1 to 10 October 1996; further details on this latter conference will be forthcoming soon. A final reminder to attendees of the The 3rd Compton Symposium recently held in Munich: contributions to the proceedings volume for the symposium are due by October 1. BATSE The past month has been a busy one for the BATSE occultation and pulsar teams, with several announcements made in the IAU Circulars. The following notice appeared in IAU Circular 6204: GRS 1915+105 B. A. Harmon, W. S. Paciesas, and G. J. Fishman, Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, report, for the Compton Observatory BATSE Team: "The 20- to 100-keV hard-x-ray flux from GRS 1915+105, measured by BATSE, has been increasing gradually since late July. The source showed variability on a 1-day timescale; the average flux was about 150 mCrab for Aug. 5-8. This sustained level of activity is comparable to that seen in 1995 Jan.-Feb." The following notice appeared in IAU Circular 6205: X-RAY NOVA 1994 IN SCORPIUS B. A. Harmon, W. S. Paciesas, and G. J. Fishman, Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, report for the Compton Observatory BATSE Team: "The radio-jet transient GRO J1655-40, which has been outburst since late July (IAUC 6196, 6201), reached a peak intensity in the band 20-100 keV of 650 +/- 30 mCrab on Aug. 1, decreasing to 80 +/- 20 mCrab as of Aug. 9." H. Inoue, F. Nagase, and Y. Ueda, on behalf of the ASCA team, communicate: "ASCA will observe this source during Aug. 15.45- 16.18 UT, to investigate jet activity. Simultaneous optical and radio observations are encouraged." The following notice appeared in IAU Circular 6207: GRO J1735-27 R. B. Wilson, S. N. Zhang, M. Scott, and B. A. Harmon, Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA; and T. Koh, D. Chakrabarty, B. Vaughan, and T. A. Prince, California Institute of Technology, report for the Compton Observatory BATSE team: "Pulsations from a previously- uncatalogued source were detected on July 29 in the galactic-center region by BATSE. The observed period history shows a clear orbital signature. The maximum pulsed intensity was observed on Aug. 13, with a measured barycentric pulse period of 4.45565 +/- 0.000025 s; the pulses continue to be observed as of Aug. 16, at energies from 20 to at least 70 keV. Using occultation imaging, we observed a source of about 100 mCrab in the energy range 20-50 keV not present during July 2-14. A preliminary location (90-percent confidence) is bounded by a quadrilateral with vertices (equinox 2000.0) at R.A. = 17h36m, Decl. = -26o.9; 17h37m, -28o.0; 17h33m, -27o.3; 17h32m, -26o.1. Positions estimated independently from the pulsed and DC flux are consistent at a 68-percent confidence level. If the detected emissions are from the same source, the pulsed fraction is about 30 percent. The energy spectrum of the pulsed component on Aug. 5 was well fitted by a power-law model F(E) = C[E/(30 keV)]E(-alpha), with C = (2.7 +/- 1.0) x 10E-4 photon cmE-2 sE-1 keVE-1, and alpha = 3.5 +/- 1.0." The following notices appeared in IAU Circular 6209: X-RAY NOVA 1994 IN SCORPIUS S. N. Zhang, B. A. Harmon, W. S. Paciesas, and G. J. Fishman, Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, report for the Compton Observatory BATSE Team: "The x-ray/radio transient source GRO J1655-40 has been undergoing another bright outburst in hard x-rays, immediately after the last outburst (IAUC 6196) reached a minimum flux level of about 60 mCrab (20-100 keV) on Aug. 9 (IAUC 6205). The energy spectrum can be well fitted by a power law with significant flux detectable up to 200 keV. The peak flux of the current outburst was 600 +/- 70 mCrab (20-100 keV) on Aug. 17. The flux has since declined to about 250 +/- 50 mCrab on Aug. 19. The photon spectral index changed from -2.1 on Aug. 10 to -2.5 on Aug. 17 and to -1.8 on Aug. 19, consistent with the spectral evolution seen previously from this source. We note that the 8- to 20-keV flux detected by WATCH/GRANAT continued to rise since Aug. 17 (see above). The current activity from July 22 appeared in phase with the previous three major outbursts with peak flux above 1 Crab, which were separated by 120 days." GRS 1915+105 Zhang et al. report: "Hard x-ray activity from GRS 1915+105 has continued since a previous report (IAUC 6204). The flux in the band 20-100 keV peaked on Aug. 11 at 220 +/-25 mCrab, following the intense radio flare on Aug. 10 (IAUC 6204), then decreased rapidly until the source was undetectable on Aug. 14. We note that the 8- to 20-keV flux (see above) continued to increase after Aug. 11, suggesting a hard-to-soft transition in the spectrum." The following notice appeared in IAU Circular 6210: CYGNUS X-1 W. Paciesas, D. Crary, G. Fishman, B. A. Harmon, C. Kouveliotou, and S. N. Zhang, Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, report for the Compton Observatory BATSE team: "Since about June 28, the blackhole-candidate binary system Cyg X-1 (= HDE 226868) has been in a state of unusually intense low-frequency noise. The power spectrum of the 20- to 100-keV emission between 0.005 and 0.5 Hz shows the typical shape for Cyg X-1: flat at low frequencies and falling off roughly as 1/f at high frequencies. However, the total power in the low-frequency noise increased by a factor of about 3 between June 28 and July 30, while the break frequency dropped from about 0.08 to about 0.04 Hz, similar to the effect seen at lower energies by Belloni and Hasinger (1990, A.Ap. 227, L33). The increased noise is not correlated with source intensity. Individual Cyg X-1 flares with timescales of order 1-10 s have triggered the burst detection algorithm aboard BATSE > 30 times since June 28. Continuous BATSE monitoring has shown no similar level of activity in Cyg X-1 since 1991 Nov." The following notice has been submitted for inclusion in an IAU Circular: GRO J1750-27 and GRO J1735-27 T. Koh, D. Chakrabarty, T. A. Prince, B. Vaughan, California Institute of Technology; and S. N. Zhang, M. Scott, M. H. Finger, and R. B. Wilson, Marshall Space Flight Center, report for the Compton GRO/BATSE team: "Further observations of the recently discovered 4.45 s transient hard X-ray pulsar in the Galactic center region (originally designated GRO J1735-27; see IAUC 6207) have yielded a refined position, based only on pulsed flux, which indicates that the pulsed and unpulsed emission reported in IAU 6207 come from different sources. The estimated 90-percent-confidence error box for the pulsed source is approximately a quadrilateral of size 0.7 square degrees, with vertices RA = 17h47m, Dec = -27o.8; 17h50m, -28o.0; 17h52m, -26o.9; 17h49m, -26o.7 (equinox 2000.0). In accordance with the new position, we have redesignated the pulsed source as GRO J1750-27 and the unpulsed source as GRO J1735-27. The pulsed emission first detected on Jul 29 UT continues to be visible as of Aug 29. The barycentric pulse period for GRO J1750-27 on Aug 29.5 was 4.45311 +/- 0.00003 s, with an approximate period derivative of -0.11 s yrE-1. Optical and soft X-ray observations of the error box are encouraged to further constrain the source position and identify the accreting companion. The unpulsed source (GRO J1735-27) reported in IAUC 6207 is not observed in data combined from Aug. 11 - 21, 1995, while pulses from GRO J1750-27 have been detected at a nearly constant level through Aug. 29. The position reported in IAUC 6207 remains valid for the unpulsed source GRO J1735-27. GX 339-4 continues its outburst. The flux level in the 20-100 keV band is about 200 mCrab. GRO J1719-24 = GRS 1716-249, which was in outburst earlier this summer, began fading around Aug 11 and is no longer detectable to BATSE. The BATSE pulsed source monitor has detected the following sources in the last month : Her X-1, Cen X-3, GRO J1750-27, 4U 1626-67, OAO 1657-415, GX 1+4, Vela X-1, and GX 301-2. The BATSE burst trigger is using the full LAD energy range (~20-1800 keV). As of September 2 BATSE has detected 1346 gamma-ray bursts out of a total of 3669 on-board triggers in 1593 days of operation. There have been 757 triggers due to solar flares, 9 due to SGR events, and 49 due to terrestrial gamma-ray flashes. The BATSE data analysis team has developed a schedule to provide overdue data products on discrete/steady (non-burst) objects to the CGRO-SSC. These products include low- and medium-level data as well as data on sources observed by earth occultation and pulsar analysis. Details of these data products and their scheduled delivery may be obtained from the SSC. There are a limited number of extra copies of the Proceedings of the 2nd Huntsville GRB Workshop (AIP Proc. #307). A copy may be requested from Ms. Susan Benefield: benefield@batse.msfc.nasa.gov.