HEASARC Staff Scientist Position - Applications are now being accepted for a Staff Scientist with significant experience and interest in the technical aspects of astrophysics research, to work in the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, MD. Refer to the AAS Job register for full details.

Using Hera

How to use Hera

    There are basically 2 steps to using Hera:

  • Save data sets to your Hera account.
    Select the data sets that you are interested in analyzing from the HEASARC data archive using Xamin. On the file download page you are given the option to save the data to Hera instead of downloading them to your local machine. At that point you will be given the opportunity to create a new Hera user account if you do not already have one.

  • Login to Hera from your local computer

    • using fv.

      The version of fv that is distributed with the latest version of HEASOFT will work, otherwise download and install the standalone version of fv. On Windows PCs it is recommended that you download the self-extract installation executable (here). Once you've downloaded the file, double-click on it to launch InstallShield, which will guide you through the installation process). At end of the installation, the process will create a convenient 'Hera' icon on your Windows desktop.

      To connect to Hera on Unix or Mac OS machines, enter the command

      > fv -hera &

      On Windows machines, simply 'double click' on the Hera desktop icon.

    • using Web version of Hera.

    You will then be prompted to enter your Hera user name and password (or create one if you do not already have a Hera account).

    After logging in, the main Hera window will appear, which is divided into 3 main areas:

    • Left window: list of all available software tools, organized into packages

    • Upper right window: directory listing of files on the Hera Server

    • Lower right window: directory listing of files on your local machine

    An on-line help facility is available that explains the various features in the Hera interface.

Contacting Us

Hera is an ongoing project whose original development was funded by a NASA AISRP grant. We are interested in your suggestions and comments on how Hera could be improved. Please send any comments via email us directly at this address: heradev "at" bigbang.gsfc.nasa.gov.

The Hera development team currently consists of:

    Pan Chai
    Edward Sabol
    Stephan Fantasia
    Michael Arida
    Bryan Irby

Previous contributors include:
    William Pence, Ziqin Pan, Peter Wilson, Ning Gan, Christina Heikkila, Thomas McGlynn, Laura McDonald