XMM-Newton SAS Team release MacOS version

The SAS team are very pleased to announce the release of a MacOS version of SAS 6.

The SAS maintenance and development team at the XMM-Newton SOC committed, some time ago, to produce a SAS version for running on MacOS. This reflected the high interest in such a version, expressed especially by the U.S. community. The commitment was made despite limited dedicated H/W resources and despite the fact that the SOC does not have specific expertise for the Mac system.

After facing and solving a lot of difficulties, to a large extent related to third party S/W on Mac, we have been able to produce a SAS 6 ("6.1 alpha") version for final scientific validation testing. That testing has already been partly done in the SOC. However, the validation performed has not yet reached the level of thoroughness we require for releasing a new SAS version and the support we can provide at this stage is only moderate. Therefore we are unwilling to release publicly SAS 6 for Mac at this time, but we are prepared to distribute the binaries upon individual request. SAS Mac users could help us, in this way, to overcome H/W and manpower limitations, testing SAS on the Mac over a certain period until we feel we are in a position to make a regular public release.

For further details on obtaining this MacOS release please visit our SAS Download Pages