The 3XMM-DR8 catalogue contains source detections drawn from 10242 XMM-Newton EPIC observations, covering an energy interval from 0.2 keV to 12 keV. These observations were made between 2000 February 3 and 2017 November 30 and all datasets were publicly available by 2017 December 31, but not all public observations are included in this catalogue (see below for more information).
Should you use the catalogue for your research and publish the results, please use the acknowledgement below and cite the paper describing 3XMM (Rosen, Webb, Watson et al., 2016, A&A, 590, 1).
As well as the fits and csv formats of the catalogue distributed below, the following Web-based user interfaces will allow filtering and searching of the catalogue (and give access to all or selected associated data products):
The SSC Catalogue Home Page (this page), XSA, and HEASARC allow download of the catalogue file in (binary) FITS. Summary pages and products will be available shortly through LEDAS, but are already available in the IRAP catalogue server.
The cross-correlation products of potential counterparts at other wavelengths for 3XMM-DR8 are provided through the XCAT-DB and the IRAP catalogue server.
| 3XMM-DR8 | 3XMM-DR7 | Increment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of observations | 10242 | 9710 | 532 |
| Number of 'clean' observations (i.e., observation class < 3) | 6496 | 6164 | 332 |
| Observing interval | 03-Feb-00 -- 30-Nov-17 | 03-Feb-00 -- 15-Dec-16 | 1 yr |
| Sky coverage, taking overlaps into account ( ≥ 1ksec exposure) | 1089 sq.deg | 1032 sq.deg | 57 sq.deg |
| Number of detections | 775153 | 727790 | 47363 |
| Number of 'clean' detections (i.e., summary flag < 3) | 633733 | 596268 | 37465 |
| Number of unique sources | 531454 | 499266 | 32188 |
| Number of 'cleanest' (summary flag = 0, not in high-background fields) extended detections | 12256 | 11220 | 1036 |
| Number of detections with spectra | 173277 | 162082 | 11195 |
| Number of detections with timeseries | 173208 | 162045 | 11163 |
| Number of detections where probability of timeseries being constant is < 1 × 10-5 | 5934 | 5631 | 303 |
The median flux in the total photon energy band (0.2 - 12 keV) of the catalogue detections is ~ 2.2 × 10-14 erg cm-2 s-1; in the soft energy band (0.2 - 2 keV) the median flux is ~ 5.2 × 10-15, and in the hard band (2 - 12 keV) it is ~ 1.2 × 10-14. About 23% of the sources have total fluxes below 1 × 10-14 erg cm-2 s-1.
About a fifth of the observations have features that may cause spurious detections (mainly the wings of bright sources and large extended emission), and it is strongly recommended to use a filter (both per source, based on the summary flag column, and per observation, based on the observation class column).
The 3XMM-DR8 catalogue, released on 2018 May 16th, is available in several formats:
Please read the Watchouts section before using the catalogues.
| 3XMM_DR8cat_v1.0.fits.gz | FITS binary | 644 MB | MD5: 94165bac158af76dd429b58c3fe43dc3 | full binary catalogue; recommended for more in-depth studies (includes information of all detections) |
| 3XMM_DR8cat_v1.0.csv.gz | CSV | 698 MB | MD5: 8d4d692315a5f3c8116fd0dcd4044fcf | full ascii catalogue |
| 3XMM_DR8cat_slim_v1.0.fits.gz | FITS binary | 69 MB | MD5: 2a53ba575073852bf2c17511aa846eba | reduced binary catalogue, suited for studies of unique sources (individual detection information is not included) |
| 3XMM_DR8cat_slim_v1.0.csv.gz | CSV | 77 MB | MD5: 20609a5bce585c215d1aafbab813c51f | reduced ascii catalogue |
For convenience, there are suitable SQL CREATE statements available for use with a relational DBMS in order to load the data in CSV format:
The CSV file has nulls represented by two successive commas, compatible with Postgres and (probably) other DBMS.
The slimline version of the catalogue contains one row per unique source (while the the main catalogue has one row per detection) and thus has 531454 rows. There are 44 columns, essentially those containing information about the unique sources. The catalogue also contains a column with links to the IRAP catalogue server summary pages. In the case of sources with multiple detections, the summary page of the best detection is selected (i.e., the detection with the largest exposure time, summed over all cameras), and the summary page gives cross-links to the other detections.
A separate file is also provided (table below) which contains key details about the observations used in the construction of the 3XMM-DR8 catalogue. See the list of observations for a description of the columns in the file.
| 3xmmdr8_obslist.fits | FITS binary | 1.0 MB | MD5: 7ec52f363490927415d3c0a07b737a8e | Summary table of observations used in the catalogue |
The User Guide for the 3XMM-DR8 catalogue contains details of the catalogue production process and content. Here are quick links to
1) Please use SRCID and DETID columns only for the source and detection identification as these are the only columns that will persist in future versions of the catalogue, see the user guide, section 3.2. The usage of IAUNAME is not recommended as its uniqueness is not enforced over the set of unique sources.
With the new 3XMM catalogue, IAU name nomenclature includes the designator, 3XMM. The IAU name is provided in the catalogue. The correct, full nomenclature for a specific detection from the catalogues is the IAU name, followed by a colon and the detection identification number, that is:"3XMM Jhhmmss.sSddmmss:detid".
The production of the 3XMM-DR8 catalogue is a collaborative project involving the whole XMM-Newton SSC Consortium:
The SSC team are grateful to the XMM-Newton SOC for their support in the catalogue production activities.
The SSC acknowledges the use of the TOPCAT and STILTS software packages (written by Mark Taylor, University of Bristol) in the production and testing of the 3XMM-DR8 catalogue.