Description of the RXTE All Sky Monitor Animation
The video clips from the RXTE ASM movie depict the brightness of
X-ray objects on a map of the entire sky.
Below is an example frame from the animation
Credit: RXTE ASM Team/MIT
The upper oval shows the entire sky, with the plane of our Galaxy
running across the center. The lower portion is an expanded view
of the crowded region of the sky near the center of our Galaxy. In
this image, some notable X-ray Sources are located. Note that the
Sun is depicted by an open circle. In the animations, the Sun moves
as time goes on.
The X-ray objects are pinpoints, just like visible stars, but in the
animation they are indicated with colored circles. The size of a
circle represents the brightness. The color of the circle is the
"X-ray color." Blue generally represents higher-temperature gases
and red represents lower-temperature gases.
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