The young stellar cluster illuminating the W40 H II region, one of the nearest massive star-forming regions (SFRs), has been observed with the ACIS detector on board the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Due to its high obscuration, this is a poorly studied stellar cluster with only a handful of bright stars visible in the optical band, including three OB stars identified as primary excitation sources. The authors detect 225 X-ray sources, of which 85% are confidently identified as young stellar members of the region. Two potential distances of the cluster, 260 pc and 600 pc, are used in the paper. Supposing the X-ray luminosity function of SFRs to be universal, it supports a 600 pc distance as a lower limit for W40 and a total population of at least 600 stars down to 0.1 M_sun under the assumption of a coeval population with a uniform obscuration. In fact, there is strong spatial variation in K_s-band-excess disk fraction and non-uniform obscuration due to a dust lane that is identified in absorption in optical, infrared, and X-ray. The dust lane is likely part of a ring of material which includes the molecular core within W40. In contrast to the likely ongoing star formation in the dust lane, the molecular core is inactive. The star cluster has a spherical morphology, an isothermal sphere density profile, and mass segregation down to 1.5 M_sun. However, other cluster properties, including a <= 1 Myr age estimate and ongoing star formation, indicate that the cluster is not dynamically relaxed. X-ray diffuse emission and a powerful flare from a young stellar object are also reported in the reference paper. This table was created by the HEASARC in March 2011 based on electronic versions of Tables, 1, 2 and 4 of the reference paper which were obtained from the ApJ web site. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

This table contains some of the results from a multi-wavelength study of a partially embedded region of star formation centered on the Herbig Be star LkH-alpha 101. Using two 40 ks Chandra observations, The authors have detected 213 X-ray sources in the ~ 17' x 17' ACIS-I field. They combine the X-ray data with Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) near-IR observations and Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) IRAC and MIPS 24-micron observations to obtain a complete picture of the cluster. A total of 158 of the X-ray sources have infrared counterparts. Of these, the authors find nine protostars, 48 Class II objects, five transition objects, and 72 Class III objects. From the Spitzer data, they identify an additional 10 protostars, 53 Class II objects, and four transition disk candidates which are not detected by Chandra. (These objects are not included in this HEASARC table which contains the multi-wavelength data for only the 213 detected X-ray sources). The authors obtained optical spectra of a sample of both X-ray-detected and non-X-ray-detected objects. Combining the X-ray, Spitzer, and spectral data, they obtain independent estimates of cluster distance and the total cluster size - excluding protostars. The authors obtain consistent distance estimates of 510 (+100,-40) pc and a total cluster size of 255 (+50,-25) stars. They find the Class II:III ratio is about 5:7 with some evidence that the Class III sources are spatially more dispersed. The cluster appears very young with three sites of active star formation and a median age of about 1 Myr. The field was observed by Chandra on 2005 March 6 starting at 17:16 UT for 40.2 ks of total time and 39.6 ks of the so-called good time (Chandra ObsID 5429). It was observed again on 2005 March 8 starting at 17:43 UT for essentially the same duration (Chandra ObsID 5428). The ACIS was used in the nominal imaging array (chips I0-I3) which provides a field of view of approximately 17' x 17'. The aimpoint was at RA, Dec = 04:30:14.4, +35:16:22.2 (J2000.0) with a roll angle of 281 degrees. In addition, the S2 and S3 chips were active; however, the analysis of these data is not presented here. For purposes of point-source detection, the data from the two observations were merged into a single event list following established CIAO procedures to create a merged event list. To identify point sources, photons with energies below 300 eV and above 8.0 keV were filtered out from this merged event list. This excluded energies which generally lack a stellar contribution. By filtering the data as described, contributions from hard, non-stellar sources such as X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are attenuated, as is noise. A monochromatic exposure map was generated in the standard way using an energy of 1.49 keV which is a reasonable match to the expected peak energy of the stellar sources and the Chandra mirror transmission. The CIAO tool WavDetect was then run on a series of flux-corrected images binned by 1, 2, and 4 pixels. The output source lists were combined and this resulted in the detection of 231 sources. The authors defined false detections as any sources with < 4 net counts or any sources more than 5' off-axis with < 7 net counts. By this definition, 18 of the 231 detections were rejected as false detections. A post facto check confirmed that none of these (spurious) sources had an infrared counterpart. This table was created by the HEASARC in July 2010 based on the versions of Tables 1, 2, 3, 7 and 9 from the paper which were obtained from the electronic ApJ web site. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

The aim of this study was to find an explanation for the remarkable morphology of the central part of the S254-S258 star forming complex. The authors performed a deep Chandra X-ray observation of the S254-S258 region in order to efficiently discriminate young stars (with and without circumstellar matter) from the numerous older field stars in the area. They detected 364 X-ray point sources in a 17' x 17' (~ 8 x 8 pc) field. This X-ray catalog provides, for the first time, a complete sample of all young stars in the region down to about 0.5 M_{sun}_. A clustering analysis identifies three significant clusters: the central embedded cluster S255-IR and two smaller clusterings in S256 and S258. Sixty-four X-ray sources can be classified as members in one of these clusters. After accounting for X-ray background contaminants, this implies that about 250 X-ray sources constitute a widely scattered population of young stars, distributed over the full field-of-view of the X-ray image. This distributed young stellar population is considerably larger than the previously known number of non-clustered young stars selected by infrared excesses. Comparison of the X-ray luminosity function with that of the Orion Nebula Cluster suggests a total population of ~ 2000 young stars in the observed part of the S254-S258 region. The S254-S258 complex was observed (PI: Preibisch) in November 2009 with the Imaging Array of the Chandra Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS-I). ACIS-I provides a field of view of 17' x 17' on the sky. At the 1.6 kpc distance of S254-S258 this corresponds to 7.9 x 7.9 pc. The aimpoint of the observation was RA(J2000) = 06h12m54.0s, Dec(J2000) = +17d 59' 24". The observation was performed in the standard 'Timed Event, Faint' mode (with 3 x 3 pixel event islands). The total net exposure time of 74725 s (20.76 h) was split into two parts, separated by about 4 days. The details of these two observation parts are given in Table 1 of the reference paper. The authors first employed the wavdetect algorithm (Freeman et al. 2002, ApJS, 138, 185, a CIAO mexican-hat wavelet source detection tool) for locating X-ray sources in the merged image, and used a rather low detection threshold of 10^-5. This step was performed in three different energy bands, the total band (0.5 - 8.0 keV), the soft band (0.5 - 2.0 keV), and the hard band (2.0 - 8.0) keV, and with wavelet scales between 1 and 16 pixels. They also performed a visual inspection of the images and added some 30 additional candidates to the merged catalog from the wavelet analysis, resulting in a final catalog of 511 potential X-ray sources. To clean this catalog from spurious sources, they then performed a detailed analysis of each individual candidate source with the ACIS Extract (AE hereafter) software package (Broos et al. 2010, ApJ, 714, 1582). The Poisson probability (P_B) associated with the "null hypothesis", i.e. that no source exists and the extracted events are solely due to Poisson fluctuations in the local background, was computed for each source using AE. All candidate sources with P_B > 0.01 were rejected as background fluctuations. After 8 iterations of this pruning procedure the final catalog consisted of 364 sources. It contains 344 primary sources with P_B < 0.003, and 20 tentative sources with 0.003 < P_B < 0.01. To obtain an estimate of the intrinsic, i.e. extinction-corrected, X-ray luminosity for sources that are too weak for a detailed spectral analysis, the authors used the XPHOT software, developed by Getman et al. (2010, ApJ, 708, 1760). XPHOT is based on a non-parametric method for the calculation of fluxes and absorbing X-ray column densities of weak X-ray sources. X-ray extinction and intrinsic flux are estimated from the comparison of the apparent median energy of the source photons and apparent source flux with those of high signal-to-noise spectra that were simulated using spectral models

This contains some of the results from the first high spatial resolution X-ray study of the massive star-forming region NGC 6357, which were obtained in a 38 ks Chandra/ACIS observation. Inside the brightest constituent of this large H II region complex is the massive open cluster Pismis 24. It contains two of the brightest and bluest stars known, yet remains poorly studied; only a handful of optically bright stellar members have been identified. The authors have investigated the cluster extent and initial mass function and detected ~800 X-ray sources with a limiting sensitivity of ~ 10³⁰ erg s^-1: this provides the first reliable probe of the rich intermediate-mass and low-mass population of this massive cluster, increasing the number of known members from optical studies by a factor of ~ 50. The high-luminosity end (log L[2-8 keV] >= 30.3 erg s^-1) of the observed X-ray luminosity function in NGC 6357 is clearly consistent with a power-law relation as seen in the Orion Nebula Cluster and Cepheus B, yielding the first estimate of NGC 6357's total cluster population, a few times the known Orion population. The long-standing L_X ~ 10^-7 L_bol correlation for O stars is confirmed. Twenty-four candidate O stars and one possible new obscured massive YSO or Wolf-Rayet star are presented. Many cluster members are estimated to be intermediate-mass stars from available infrared photometry (assuming an age of ~ 1 Myr), but only a few exhibit K-band excess. The authors report the first detection of X-ray emission from an evaporating gaseous globule at the tip of a molecular pillar; this source is likely a B0-B2 protostar. NGC 6357 was observed on 2004 July 9 with the Imaging Array of the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS-I) on board Chandra. Four front-illuminated (FI) CCDs form the ACIS-I, which covers a field of view (FOV) of ~ 17 by 17 arcminutes. The observation was made in the standard Timed Exposure, Very Faint mode, with 3.2 s integration time and 5 pixel by 5 pixel event islands. The total exposure time was 38 ks and the satellite roll angle was 289 degrees. The aim point was centered on the O3 If star Pis 24-1, the heart of the OB association Pismis 24. The Chandra observation ID is 4477. Data reduction started with filtering the Level 1 event list processed by the Chandra X-ray Center pipeline to recover an improved Level 2 event list. To improve absolute astrometry, X-ray positions of ACIS-I sources were obtained by running the wavdetect wavelet-based source detection algorithm within the Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations (CIAO) package on the original Level 2 event list, using only the central 8 by 8 arcminutes of the field. The resulting X-ray sources were matched to the 2MASS point source catalog. The authors calculated the position offsets between 277 X-ray sources and their NIR counterparts and applied an offset of +0.02" in right ascension (R.A.) and -0.33" in declination to the X-ray coordinates. From an initial list of 910 potential X-ray sources, the authors rejected sources with a P_B > 1% likelihood of being a background fluctuation. The trimmed source list includes 779 sources, with full-band (0.5 - 8.0 keV) net (background-subtracted) counts ranging from 1.7 to 1837 counts. The 779 valid sources were purposely divided by the authors into two lists: the 665 sources with P_B < 0.1% make up the primary source list of highly reliable sources (Table 1 in the reference paper; sources with source_type = 'M' in this table), and the remaining 114 sources with P_B >= 0.1% likelihood of being spurious background fluctuations were listed as tentative sources in Table 2 of the reference paper (source_type = 'T' in this table). The authors believe that most of these tentative sources are likely real detections. This table was created by the HEASARC in October 2007 based on the merger of the electronic versions of Tables