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M 81 Chandra X-Ray Discrete Source Catalog

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

A Chandra X-Ray Observatory ACIS-S imaging observation is used to study the population of X-ray sources in the nearby (3.6 Mpc) Sab galaxy M 81 (NGC 3031). A total of 177 sources are detected, with 124 located within the D_25 isophote to a limiting X-ray luminosity of ~ 3 x 10<sup>36</sup> erg/s. Source positions, count rates, luminosities in the 0.3 - 8.0 keV band, limiting optical magnitudes, and potential counterpart identifications are tabulated. Spectral and timing analysis of the 36 brightest sources are reported, including the low-luminosity active galactic nucleus, SN 1993J, and the Einstein-discovered ultraluminous X-ray source X6. The primary X-ray data set is a 49926 s observation of M81 obtained on 2000 May 7 with the Chandra Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) spectroscopy array operating in imaging mode. The X-ray data were reprocessed by the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) on 2001 January 4. These reprocessed data were used in this work. There are no significant differences between the reprocessed data and the originally distributed data analyzed by Tennant et al. (2001ApJ...549L..43T). The observation was taken in faint timed exposure mode at 3.241 s/frame at a focal plane temperature of -120 C. Standard CXC processing has applied aspect corrections and compensated for spacecraft dither. The primary target, SN 1993J, was located near the nominal aimpoint on the back-illuminated (BI) device S3. The nucleus of M81 lies 2.79' from SN 1993J toward the center of S3 in this observation. Accurate positions of these two objects and two G0 stars located on device S2 were used to identify any offset and to determine absolute locations of the remaining Chandra sources as well as objects in other X-ray images and those obtained at other wavelengths. No offset correction was applied to the Chandra X-ray positions. This table was created by the HEASARC in March 2007 based on the CDS table J/ApJS/144/213, files table2.dat and table3.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
Publisher High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://nasa.heasarc/m81cxo
Data Last Modified 2025-09-10
Category Astrophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 7e615f05-941a-4034-a888-02930f3f4cc1
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/m81cxo.html
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 231ab90a830f7a38eb11c8591460da000376fe6f44e9829904d2bc768bae4d21
Source Schema Version 1.1

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