Introduction

In September 2018, the H.E.S.S. Collaboration has, for the first time, released a small subset of its archival data in Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) format, an open file format widely used in astronomy. The release consists of event lists and instrument response functions for observations of various well-known gamma-ray sources (the Crab nebula, PKS 2155-304, MSH 15-52, RX J1713.7-3946) as well as observations of empty fields for background modeling. It is compliant to the open format specifications developed in view of the upcoming CTA Observatory. The release is meant to support the development of open-source science tools for high-level analysis of gamma-ray data by providing access to “real” gamma-ray data in the appropriate format for the first time.

Data release

• Release notes: hess_dl3_dr1.pdf (5 MB)
• Data download: hess_dl3_dr1.tar (45 MB)
• A copy of the data and release notes are archived at https://zenodo.org/record/1421099
• The release notes document is also available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.04516
• Data formats: https://gamma-astro-data-formats.readthedocs.io
• Questions or comments: contact.hess@hess-experiment.eu
• A tutorial “H.E.S.S. with Gammapy” is available at docs.gammapy.org.

Publications making use of the public data release

• Mohrmann, L et al., “Towards a 3D likelihood analysis in very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy: the case of H.E.S.S.”, Proc. 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2019), Madison, Wisconsin, USA, id. 747
• C. Nigro et al., “Towards open and reproducible multi-instrument analysis in gamma-ray astronomy”, Astron. Astrophys. 625 (2019) A10
• L. Mohrmann et al., “Validation of open-source science tools and background model construction in gamma-ray astronomy”, Astron. Astrophys. 632 (2019) A72
• J. Knödelseder et al., “Analysis of the H.E.S.S. public data release with ctools”, Astron. Astrophys. 632 (2019) A102

Your paper does not appear on this list? Please contact us.

Credits

This data release was prepared by the H.E.S.S. FITS data task group. Members (current and former) include Christoph Deil, Lars Mohrmann, Johannes King, Catherine Boisson, Axel Donath, Julien Lefaucheur, Bruno Khélifi, Léa Jouvin, Régis Terrier, Alexander Ziegler, Domenico Tiziani, Christopher Sobel, Karl Kosack, Michael Mayer and Anneli Schulz.

We would like to thank everyone that has contributed to the open data for gamma-ray astronomy effort at https://gamma-astro-data-formats.readthedocs.io