XMM Users' Handbook

   
Comparison with other X-ray satellites

A basic comparison of XMM's mirror effective area with those of AXAF, ROSAT and ASCA is presented above (§ 3.2.2), in Figs. 10 and 11.

 

Table 20: Comparison of XMM with other X-ray satellites

$\parbox{2cm}{{\bf Satellite}}$	$\parbox{2.5cm}{{\bf Mirror~PSF {\em FWHM} [$~{\bf ''}$ ]}}$	$\parbox{2.5cm}{{\bf Mirror~PSF {\em HEW} [$~{\bf ''}$ ]}}$	$\parbox{1.8cm}{{\bf E~range [keV]}}$	$\parbox{2.2cm}{{\bf A$_{\bf e}$ at 1 keV [cm$^{\bf 2}$ ]$^1$ }}$	$\parbox{2.8cm}{{\bf Orbital target visibility [hr]}}$
XMM	6	15	0.1 - 15	4650	402
AXAF	0.2	0.5	0.1 - 10	800	50
ROSAT	3.5	7	0.1 - 2.4	400	1.33
ASCA	73	174	0.5 - 10	350	0.93

Notes to Table 20:
1) Mirror effective area (Figs. 10 and 11).
2) Orbital visibility (above 40,000 km) split into two parts of ca. 70 ks each due to ground station telemetry gap at apogee (Fig. 79).
3) Low orbit with Earth occultation.

Other salient properties, like e.g., the PSFs, are tabulated in Tab. 20. It is visible immediately from Tab. 20 that AXAF and XMM have complementary characteristics and that both constitute a new generation of X-ray missions, with enormously improved capabilities compared to their predecessors.

Some special strengths of XMM are e.g.:

• The high time resolution of XMM with the EPIC pn camera.

• The high sensitivity of XMM + EPIC pn at high energies.

• Excellent low energy response down to 0.1 keV.

• Extreme sensitivity to extended emission.

• High-resolution spectroscopy (RGS) with simultaneous medium-resolution spectroscopy and imaging (EPIC) and optical/UV observations (OM).