HEAO 1 A1: X-ray Source Lightcurves from a Spinning Survey Satellite

HEAO 1 A1 Lightcurves contain X-ray observations from the High Energy Astronomical Observatory satellite, which operated from August 12, 1977, to January 9, 1979. The data was collected by the NRL Large Area Sky Survey Experiment (LASS) instrument, covering the energy range 0.25 to 25.0 keV with multiple detectors. This service is provided by NASA HEASARC.

Use Cases

• Analyzing X-ray source variability based on continuous coverage of selected sources.
• Studying celestial object lightcurves based on data collected in 5 or 320 millisecond timing resolution modes.
• Modeling instrument sensitivity for sources as faint as 0.25 uJy at 5 keV with a Crab-like spectrum.

Strengths

• Data collected over the entire mission duration from August 1977 to January 1979.
• Instrument specifications are detailed, including detector field-of-view (FWHM 1 deg x 0.5 deg to 2 deg x 8 deg) and open areas (1350 cm2 to 1900 cm2).
• Full sky coverage was achieved for both 5 ms and 320 ms timing resolution modes.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA HEASARC)

Collection Method

Observations from the HEAO-1 satellite's A1 (LASS) instrument.

Time Range

1977-08-12 to 1979-01-09

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 19:05:49.115041; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Full sky coverage