TO:  All GCN Sites
RE:  NEAR-XGRS GRB Detector Trigger web page available
DT:  07 Nov 99

For about 10 months the GCN system has been operating the auto_near program,
which extracts the gamma-ray transient triggers from the NEAR-XGRS instrument.
These triggers have been contributing to the auto_IPN system (GCN & K.Hurley).
Now the light curves from these NEAR-XGRS triggers are available in the GCN
web site.  The URL is  http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/near_grbs.html .
This page is similar in content, style and functional use to the Wind-KONUS
page.  The light curves are available in Postscript, JPEG, and numerical text
formats -- the GIF format is no longer available as it takes more than 20 times
the disk space and provides no better display resolution than the JPEG format.

The page is updated in real-time (as the telemetry downlink data from NEAR
is available).  There is a descriptive section at the top of the web page;
and I call attention to the cautionary remarks regarding the GRB vs non-GRB
sources of the triggers,  the non-100% duty cycle of NEAR-XGRS,  and
the ~10sec uncertainty in the timestamp for each trigger.

If there are any questions about this new service (or any other part of GCN),
please do not hesitate to conact me.

--Scott


Scott Barthelmy                      NASA-GSFC, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD   20771
PHONE:  301-286-3106                 (work)
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