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ROSAT International X-Ray/Optical Survey Source Catalog

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2026

The ROSAT International X-Ray/Optical Survey (RIXOS) is a medium-sensitivity survey and optical identification program for X-ray sources which were discovered in ROSAT high Galactic latitude fields (|b| > 28 degrees) and observed with the Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC) detector. The survey made use of the central 17 arcmin of each ROSAT field. A flux limit of 3 x 10<sup>-14</sup> erg/s/cm<sup>2</sup> (0.5-2.0 keV) was adopted for this survey, and a minimum exposure time of 8000 seconds was required for qualifying ROSAT observations. X-ray sources in the survey are therefore substantially above the detection threshold of each field used, and many contain enough counts to allow the X-ray spectral slope to be estimated. Spectroscopic observations of potential counterparts were obtained of all sources down to the survey limit in 64 fields, totaling a sky area of 15.77 square degrees. Positive optical identifications are made for 94% of the 296 sources thus examined. A further 18 fields (4.44 sq deg), containing 105 sources above the 3 x 10<sup>-14</sup> erg/s/cm<sup>2</sup> survey limit, are completely optically identified to a higher flux of 8 x 10<sup>-14</sup> erg/s/cm<sup>2</sup> (0.5-2.0 keV). Optical spectroscopic data are supplemented by deep CCD imaging of many sources to reveal the morphology of the optical counterparts, and objects too faint to register on Sky Survey plates. The faintest optical counterparts have R ~ 22. This table contains the catalog of the RIXOS sources and their optical identifications. This table was originally ingested by the HEASARC in June 2005 based on CDS table J/MNRAS/311/456/rixos.dat. It was updated in November 2013 shortly after the CDS released an update with the previously inadvertently omitted source RX J111809.9+212554 (RIXOS 123_84) included. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026
Publisher High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://nasa.heasarc/rixos
Data Last Modified 2026-04-06
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 9aad2046-80c3-4f69-ad42-b0411787dcfb
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL ivo://nasa.heasarc/rixos
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 1681e36bf35b4eb1bad88cbeff5f0f66ba161083d302466d4ce9676232dff3a3
Source Schema Version 1.1

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