Less than a month after the last HEASOFT upgrade (which usually happens every 6 – 12 months), a new version has been released. Remembering what I went through (for an entire week) trying to get it to install correctly the last time, I think I'll pass on the new version. I doubt it's crucial that I upgrade from version 6.3 to version 6.3.1.

However, there is also a new calibration database (CALDB) upgrade. Only two weeks ago, I installed the old version, and it took me a whole day to get it installed correctly. The version I have is from several months ago, so it is important that I upgrade to this new version. There goes the rest of my day.

Today was the day I'm supposed to start helping Yuki gather information about all short GRBs with redshifts for a study she's doing on the GRB-supernova connection. She needs the information quickly. I would put the calibration upgrade on hold and work on Yuki's project today, but a GRB was detected today that I need to analyze (although I haven't received a GCN notification in my email inbox yet, which is unusual). However, Swift was unable to immediately slew to today's GRB because of a Moon constraint, which disqualifies this GRB from my early afterglow timing study, since the early afterglow will be over by the time X-ray data is gathered.

I've also been spending a fair amount of time writing my report for my summer research course. The paper summarizes the work I've accomplished this summer. The GBM study has been moved to the “future work” section because I still don't have the GIOC software installed (and have been too busy to ask Bob yet again about it). I hope to jump-start the GBM project next week. If it doesn't happen then, I don't think it'll ever happen.

Edit: That didn't take long at all to install the updated CALDB - just 15 minutes! I hope it's installed correctly.