Binning and Grouping data



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Binning and Grouping data

Often one does not want to use the full resolution of a spectrum, either because the channels oversample the spectral resolution or because the S/N is low. XSPEC and the associated programs provide a number of ways of handling this. Firstly, the XSPEC setplot rebin command can be used to add channels together in the plot. It is important to realise that this effects only the plot and not the data being fitted. Two FTOOLS are available to bin and group data for fitting purposes. RBNPHA bins up the data in a non-reversible manner and should only be used to ensure that the number of bins in the spectrum is the same as that in the response. GRPPHA is the tool of choice for grouping the data to get adequate S/N or number of counts in each channel. GRPPHA does not actually add together channels, but instead sets a flag which is read by XSPEC and causes XSPEC to sum the appropriate channels. If a data file is read with some grouping then XSPEC will apply the same operation to any background or response files used.



Keith Arnaud (kaa@genji.gsfc.nasa.gov)
Mon Sep 18 14:36:38 EDT 1995