C. Deil

Astropy: A community Python package for astronomy

We present the first public version (v0.2) of the open-source and community-developed Python package, Astropy. This package provides core astronomy-related functionality to the community, including support for domain-specific file formats such as flexible image transport system (FITS) files, Virtual Observatory (VO) tables, and common ASCII table formats, unit and physical quantity conversions, physical constants specific to astronomy, celestial coordinate and time transformations, world coordinate system (WCS) support, generalized containers for representing gridded as well as tabular data, and a framework for cosmological transformations and conversions. Significant functionality is under active development, such as a model fitting framework, VO client and server tools, and aperture and point spread function (PSF) photometry tools. The core development team is actively making additions and enhancements to the current code base, and we encourage anyone interested to participate in the development of future Astropy versions.

Impact of aerosols and adverse atmospheric conditions on the data quality for spectral analysis of the H.E.S.S. telescopes

The Earth’s atmosphere is an integral part of the detector in ground-based imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope (IACT) experiments and has to be taken into account in the calibration. Atmospheric and hardware-related deviations from simulated conditions can result in the mis-reconstruction of primary particle energies and therefore of source spectra. During the eight years of observations with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) in Namibia, the overall yield in Cherenkov photons has varied strongly with time due to gradual hardware aging, together with adjustments of the hardware components, and natural, as well as anthropogenic, variations of the atmospheric transparency. Here we present robust data selection criteria that minimize these effects over the full data set of the H.E.S.S. experiment and introduce the Cherenkov transparency coefficient as a new atmospheric monitoring quantity. The influence of atmospheric transparency, as quantified by this coefficient, on energy reconstruction and spectral parameters is examined and its correlation with the aerosol optical depth (AOD) of independent MISR satellite measurements and local measurements of atmospheric clarity is investigated.

GammaLib and ctools - A software framework for the analysis of astronomical gamma-ray data

The field of gamma-ray astronomy has seen important progress during the last decade, yet to date no common software framework has been developed for the scientific analysis of gamma-ray telescope data. We propose to fill this gap by means of the GammaLib software, a generic library that we have developed to support the analysis of gamma-ray event data. GammaLib was written in C++ and all functionality is available in Python through an extension module. Based on this framework we have developed the ctools software package, a suite of software tools that enables flexible workflows to be built for the analysis of Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescope event data. The ctools are inspired by science analysis software available for existing high-energy astronomy instruments, and they follow the modular ftools model developed by the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center. The ctools were written in Python and C++, and can be either used from the command line via shell scripts or directly from Python. In this paper we present the GammaLib and ctools software versions 1.0 that were released at the end of 2015. GammaLib and ctools are ready for the science analysis of Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescope event data, and also support the analysis of Fermi-LAT data and the exploitation of the COMPTEL legacy data archive. We propose using ctools as the science tools software for the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory.

Astroplan: An open source observation planning package in Python

We present astroplan—an open source, open development, Astropy affiliated package for ground-based observation planning and scheduling in Python. astroplan is designed to provide efficient access to common observational quantities such as celestial rise, set, and meridian transit times and simple transformations from sky coordinates to altitude-azimuth coordinates without requiring a detailed understanding of astropys implementation of coordinate systems. astroplan provides convenience functions to generate common observational plots such as airmass and parallactic angle as a function of time, along with basic sky (finder) charts. Users can determine whether or not a target is observable given a variety of observing constraints, such as airmass limits, time ranges, Moon illumination/separation ranges, and more. A selection of observation schedulers are included that divide observing time among a list of targets, given observing constraints on those targets. Contributions to the source code from the community are welcome.

Exploring the Galaxy at TeV energies: Latest results from the H.E.S.S. Galactic Plane Survey

The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is an array of four imaging atmospheric-Cherenkov telescopes located in Namibia and designed to detect extensive air showers initiated by gamma-rays in the very-high-energy domain. It is an ideal instrument for surveying the Galactic plane in search of new sources, thanks to its location in the Southern Hemisphere, its excellent sensitivity, and its large field-of-view. The efforts of the H.E.S.S. Galactic Plane Survey, the first comprehensive survey of the inner Galaxy at TeV energies, have contributed to the discovery of an unexpectedly large and diverse population of over 60 sources of VHE gamma rays within its current range of l=250 to 65 degrees in longitude and |b|<=3.5 degrees in latitude. The population of VHE gamma-ray emitters is dominated by the pulsar wind nebula and supernova remnant source classes, although nearly a third remain unidentified or confused. The sensitivity of H.E.S.S. to sources in the inner Galaxy has improved significantly over the past two years, from continued survey observations, dedicated follow-up observations of interesting source candidates, and from the development of advanced methods for discrimination of gamma-ray-induced showers from the dominant background of hadron-induced showers. The latest maps of the Galaxy at TeV energies will be presented, and a few remarkable new sources will be highlighted.

Discovery of new TeV supernova remnant shells in the Galactic plane with H.E.S.S.

Supernova remnants (SNRs) are prime candidates for efficient particle acceleration up to the knee in the cosmic ray particle spectrum. In this work we present a new method for a systematic search for new TeV-emitting SNR shells in 2864 hours of H.E.S.S. phase I data used for the H.E.S.S. Galactic Plane Survey. This new method, which correctly identifies the known shell morphologies of the TeV SNRs covered by the survey, HESS J1731-347, RX 1713.7-3946, RCW 86, and Vela Junior, reveals also the existence of three new SNR candidates. All three candidates were extensively studied regarding their morphological, spectral, and multi-wavelength (MWL) properties. HESS J1534-571 was associated with the radio SNR candidate G323.7-1.0, and thus is classified as an SNR. HESS J1912+101 and HESS J1614-518, on the other hand, do not have radio or X-ray counterparts that would permit to identify them firmly as SNRs, and therefore they remain SNR candidates, discovered first at TeV energies as such. Further MWL follow up o...

Gammapy - A prototype for the CTA science tools

Gammapy is a Python package for high-level gamma-ray data analysis built on Numpy, Scipy and Astropy. It enables us to analyze gamma-ray data and to create sky images, spectra and lightcurves, from event lists and instrument response information, and to determine the position, morphology and spectra of gamma-ray sources. So far Gammapy has mostly been used to analyze data from H.E.S.S. and Fermi-LAT, and is now being used for the simulation and analysis of observations from the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). We have proposed Gammapy as a prototype for the CTA science tools. This contribution gives an overview of the Gammapy package and project and shows an analysis application example with simulated CTA data.

H.E.S.S. II—Telescope Structure, Reflector and Drive System

The currently operating phase I of the imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope array H.E.S.S. consists of four telescopes, each with a 107 m2 reflector, which are arranged on the corners of a square of 120 m side length. At the moment, the collaboration is building a much larger 600 m2 telescope in the center of the array. This will not only increase the sensitivity in the currently accessible energy regime, but will in addition lower the energy threshold of the system. The H.E.S.S. II telescope will have a parabolic reflector of 36 m focal length consisting of 850 individual mirrors, which can be automatically aligned, similar to the H.E.S.S. I telescopes. The drive system will have a repositioning speed of 100 deg/min in elevation and 200 deg/min in azimuth and achieve an online tracking accuracy of ∼1 arcmin and an offline absolute pointing accuracy of ∼10 arcsec. This proceeding contribution presents details on the technical implementation of the telescope mechanics, optics and drive system.

Microsecond Time Resolution Optical Photometry using a H.E.S.S. Cherenkov Telescope

We have constructed an optical photometer with microsecond time resolution, which is currently being operated on one of the H.E.S.S. telescopes. H.E.S.S. is an array of four Cherenkov telescopes, each with a 107 m2 mirror, located in the Khomas highland in Namibia. In its normal mode of operation H.E.S.S. observes Cherenkov light from air showers generated by very high energy gamma‐rays in the upper atmosphere. Our detector consists of seven photomultipliers, one in the center to record the lightcurve from the target and six concentric photomultipliers as a veto system to reject disturbing signals e.g. from meteorites or lightning at the horizon. The data acquisition system has been designed to continuously record the signals with zero deadtime. The Crab pulsar has been observed to verify the performance of the instrument and the GPS timing system. Compact galactic targets were observed to search for flares on timescales of a few microseconds to ∼100 ms. The design and sensitivity of the instrument as wel...

Cherenkov Telescope Array science data analysis using the ctools

The ctools are a set of analysis executables that are being developed as a framework for analysing Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) high-level data products. The ctools are inspired by science analysis software available for existing high-energy astronomy instruments, and they follow the modular ftools model developed by the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC). The ctools are based on GammaLib, a C++ library interfaced to Python that provides a framework for an instrument-independent analysis of gamma-ray data. We present the status of the software development, and describe possible workflows that can be implemented for the analysis of gamma-ray data.