CIAO can be obtained from the download page
If you are writing a paper and use CIAO for the analysis, we would be grateful if you could cite CIAO with the following reference:
CIAO: Chandra's data analysis system
Fruscione et al. 2006, SPIE Proc. 6270, 62701V, D.R. Silvia & R.E. Doxsey, eds.
\bibitem[Fruscione et al.(2006)]{2006SPIE.6270E..60F} Fruscione, A., et
al.\ 2006, \procspie, 6270
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CIAO: Chandra's data analysis system [PDF]
Fruscione,
Antonella; McDowell, Jonathan C.; Allen, Glenn E.; Brickhouse, Nancy
S.; Burke, Douglas J.; Davis, John E.; Durham, Nick; Elvis, Martin;
Galle, Elizabeth C.; Harris, Daniel E.; Huenemoerder, David P.; Houck,
John C.; Ishibashi, Bish; Karovska, Margarita; Nicastro, Fabrizio;
Noble, Michael S.; Nowak, Michael A.; Primini, Frank A.; Siemiginowska,
Aneta; Smith, Randall K.; Wise, Michael
Observatory Operations:
Strategies, Processes, and Systems. Edited by Silva, David R.; Doxsey,
Rodger E.. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 6270, pp. 62701V (2006).
The
CIAO (Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations) software package
was first released in 1999 following the launch of the Chandra X-ray
Observatory and is used by astronomers across the world to analyze
Chandra data as well as data from other telescopes. From the earliest
design discussions, CIAO was planned as a general-purpose scientific
data analysis system optimized for X-ray astronomy, and consists mainly
of command line tools (allowing easy pipelining and scripting) with a
parameter-based interface layered on a flexible data manipulation I/O
library. The same code is used for the standard Chandra archive
pipeline, allowing users to recalibrate their data in a consistent way.
We will discuss the lessons learned from the first six years of the
software's evolution. Our initial approach to documentation evolved to
concentrate on recipe-based "threads" which have proved very successful.
A multi-dimensional abstract approach to data analysis has allowed new
capabilities to be added while retaining existing interfaces. A key
requirement for our community was interoperability with other data
analysis systems, leading us to adopt standard file formats and an
architecture which was as robust as possible to the input of foreign
data files, as well as re-using a number of external libraries. We
support users who are comfortable with coding themselves via a flexible
user scripting paradigm, while the availability of tightly constrained
pipeline programs are of benefit to less computationally-advanced users.
As with other analysis systems, we have found that infrastructure
maintenance and re-engineering is a necessary and significant ongoing
effort and needs to be planned in to any long-lived astronomy software.
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