Four Channel Discriminator Rates for Burst #143

What is WINGSPAN?

WINGSPAN is a program written to analyze spectral data from the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) on NASA's Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory.

Data files in the FITS (BFITS) format are suitable for input into the program. WINGSPAN can be used to view and manipulate event time histories or count spectra, and also has the capability to perform spectral deconvolution via a standard forward folding model fitting technique (Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm).

Installation of the program is not difficult. Requirements are a machine that can display windows and has IDL installed. If you desire to run the spectral model fitting program MFIT, a FORTRAN compiler is also required, and the OS must support dynamic linking for IDL's CALL_EXTERNAL function. For a UNIX operating system, a C compiler is also required.

Although WINGSPAN provides many functions for data manipulation, the program was designed to allow users to easily plug in their own external IDL routines. These external routines have access to all data read from the FITS files, as well as selection intervals created in the main part of WINGSPAN (background intervals and model, etc).

If you create a WINGSPAN external routine that you think would be useful to other scientists, send the IDL code and a brief explanation of the purpose of the routine to rob.preece@msfc.nasa.gov, and I will make it available from this page.

Although the IDL portion of WINGSPAN will run on any platform supported by IDL (except possibly Microsoft Windows, see below), the fortran model fitting routine MFIT requires use of the operating system dependent capability of IDL for shared memory access (using CALL_EXTERNAL). MFIT is currently only available for the OpenVMS operating system. We are working on a version of WINGSPAN that will run under Unix.

Notes on Windows OS

Windows95: The current version of IDL (4.0.1) does not correctly support long filenames under Win95. Hence, porting WINGSPAN requires a significant amount of work. IDL has informed me that this will be fixed in the forthcoming version 5.0. There are currently no plans to port WINGSPAN to Win95 until long filenames are fully supported by IDL. In addition, it is unlikely that the MFIT portion of WINGSPAN will implemented, due to the current FORTRAN I/O requirements of MFIT, and the manner in which I/O is handled by IDL under Win95.

Windows: WINGSPAN will not run under Windows 3.1.1 (and earlier versions) due to the 8.3 file specification restriction. The IDL code could be modified to conform to the restriction; there is currently no plan to implement these changes.

• wgsp441.tar.gz
• wgsp441.zip

• UNZIP_AXP.EXE
• UNZIP_VAX.EXE
• GUNZIP_AXP.EXE
• GUNZIP_VAX.EXE
• VMS Instructions

• HTML Help
• wingspan_ps.zip (PostScript, formatted for double-sided printing)

Installation instructions

Images and sample results

Credits / Bug Reports

Links

• Return to BATSE Home
• Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory Instrument Pages at the Compton Observatory Science Support Center
  
  • CGRO - Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
  • BATSE - Burst And Transient Source Experiment
  • COMPTEL - Imaging Compton Telescope
  • EGRET - Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope
  • OSSE - Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment

BATSE Home Page