The UK ASCA Data Archive

The Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA) is Japan's fourth cosmic X-ray astronomy mission and has been in operation since February 1993. ASCA is the first X-ray astronomy mission to combine imaging capability with a broad pass band, good spectral resolution, and a large effective area. The mission is also the first satellite to use CCDs for X-ray astronomy.

The ASCA archive contains all data which has been released to the public domain from observations in the PV and guest observer phases of the mission. The UK archive is based upon the ASCA Public Data Archive held at the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) and was provided by the HEASARC as a set of 150 CD-ROMs (= appx 98 Gb). Users of the ASCA Archive in the UK (and Europe) are recommended to use this version to take advantage of faster data transfer rates.