RIXOS: ROSAT X-Ray and Optical Source Catalog for High Galactic Latitude Fields

The ROSAT International X-Ray/Optical Survey (RIXOS) catalog contains 296 X-ray sources from high Galactic latitude fields, covering a sky area of 15.77 square degrees. It was created by NASA HEASARC based on observations with the ROSAT satellite's PSPC detector, with a flux limit of 3 x 10^-14 erg/s/cm^2. The catalog was last updated in November 2013 to include a previously omitted source.

Use Cases

• Classifying X-ray source types based on optical spectroscopic identifications.
• Analyzing the correlation between X-ray flux and optical magnitude for identified counterparts.
• Training models to predict optical identifications from X-ray survey parameters like exposure time and Galactic latitude.
• Studying the spectral properties of X-ray sources where enough counts are available for slope estimation.

Strengths

• High optical identification rate of 94% for the 296 sources examined.
• Sources are substantially above the detection threshold, with a minimum exposure time of 8000 seconds ensuring data quality.
• Supplemental deep CCD imaging provides morphological data for faint optical counterparts down to R ~ 22 magnitude.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale ML tasks.
• Data may reflect observational bias inherent to the specific 64 ROSAT fields and flux limits used.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) HEASARC, based on CDS table J/MNRAS/311/456/rixos.dat.

Collection Method

Observations from the ROSAT satellite's Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC) detector, followed by spectroscopic and imaging follow-up.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 20:10:46.276127; freshness should be verified.

Geography

High Galactic latitude fields (|b| > 28 degrees), totaling 15.77 square degrees of sky area.