Getting the dataΒΆ

The data for the H.E.S.S. first public release can be downloaded from this web site. The web site also contains release notes for the data and a link to the description of the data formats.

Once downloaded, you should have a tarball named hess_dl3_dr1.tar.gz on your disk.

Now uncompress the tarball at any place by typing

$ tar xfvz hess_dl3_dr1.tar.gz

You should now have a folder named hess_dl3_dr1 in your current working directory with the following structure:

hess_dl3_dr1/
hess_dl3_dr1/data
hess_dl3_dr1/hdu-index.fits.gz
hess_dl3_dr1/obs-index.fits.gz
hess_dl3_dr1/README.txt

You will only need the files in the data directory. Each file corresponds to one H.E.S.S observing run, which typically lasts about 28 minutes. The folder contains observations of the Crab nebula, PKS 2155-304, MSH 15-52 and RX J1713.7-3946. In addition, there are observations corresponding to empty fields that can be used to estimate the instrumental background.

In addition to the data files you will need observation definition XML files that comprise all observations for a given target. Please download the following tarball hess_dl3_dr1_obs.tar.gz and uncompress it by typing

$ tar xfvz hess_dl3_dr1_obs.tar.gz

You should now have a folder named obs in your current working directory with the following content:

hess_dl3_dr1/obs/obs_crab.xml
hess_dl3_dr1/obs/obs_msh.xml
hess_dl3_dr1/obs/obs_off.xml
hess_dl3_dr1/obs/obs_pks.xml
hess_dl3_dr1/obs/obs_pks_flare.xml
hess_dl3_dr1/obs/obs_pks_steady.xml
hess_dl3_dr1/obs/obs_rx.xml

Before continuing, please set the environment variable HESSDATA to the hess_dl3_dr1 directory, e.g.

$ export HESSDATA=$PWD/hess_dl3_dr1

To check whether the data are properly installed you can use the csobsinfo script:

$ csobsinfo debug=yes
Input event list, counts cube, or observation definition XML file [obs.xml] $HESSDATA/obs/obs_crab.xml
Output DS9 region file [ds9.reg]
2018-09-11T13:30:28: +============+
2018-09-11T13:30:28: | Parameters |
2018-09-11T13:30:28: +============+
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  inobs .....................: $HESSDATA/obs/obs_crab.xml
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  outds9file ................: ds9.reg
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  offset ....................: no
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  ra ........................: [not queried]
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  dec .......................: [not queried]
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  chatter ...................: 2
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  clobber ...................: yes
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  debug .....................: yes
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  mode ......................: ql
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  logfile ...................: csobsinfo.log
2018-09-11T13:30:28:
2018-09-11T13:30:28: +==============+
2018-09-11T13:30:28: | Observations |
2018-09-11T13:30:28: +==============+
2018-09-11T13:30:28:
2018-09-11T13:30:28: +=========+
2018-09-11T13:30:28: | Summary |
2018-09-11T13:30:28: +=========+
2018-09-11T13:30:28: === Observations ===
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Unbinned observations .....: 4
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Binned observations .......: 0
2018-09-11T13:30:28: === Events ===
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Number of events ..........: 30129
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Number of bins ............: 0
2018-09-11T13:30:28: === Pointings ===
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Mean offset angle .........: Unknown
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Mean zenith angle .........: 47.04 deg
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Mean azimuth angle ........: 13.76 deg
2018-09-11T13:30:28: === Energy range ===
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Minimum energy ............: undefined
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Maximum energy ............: undefined
2018-09-11T13:30:28: === Time range ===
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  MJD (days) ................: 53343.922 - 53347.933
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  UTC .......................: 2004-12-04T22:07:06 - 2004-12-08T22:22:02
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Total ontime ..............: 6742.00 s = 112.37 min = 1.87 h
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  Total livetime ............: 6313.81 s = 105.23 min = 1.75 h
2018-09-11T13:30:28:
2018-09-11T13:30:28: +============================+
2018-09-11T13:30:28: | Save pointings in DS9 file |
2018-09-11T13:30:28: +============================+
2018-09-11T13:30:28:  DS9 filename ..............: ds9.reg
2018-09-11T13:30:28:
2018-09-11T13:30:28: Application "csobsinfo" terminated after 11 wall clock seconds, consuming 0.169556 seconds of CPU time.