Start of Eta Car's X-ray Minimum

ATel #6357; Michael F. Corcoran (NASA/GSFC-CRESST/USRA), Jamar Liburd (U. VI), Kenji Hamaguchi (NASA/GSFC-CRESST/UMBC), Theodore Gull (NASA/GSFC), Thomas Madura (NASA/GSFC/NPP), Mairan Teodoro (NASA/GSFC/CNPq), Anthony Moffat and Noel Richardson (U. Montreal), Chris Russell (U. Delaware), Andrew Pollock (ESA), Stan Owocki (U. Delaware)
on 1 Aug 2014; 10:13 UT
Credential Certification: Michael Corcoran (michael.f.corcoran@nasa.gov)

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Analysis of Eta Car's X-ray spectrum in the 2-10 keV band using quicklook data from the X-Ray Telescope on Swift shows that the flux on July 30, 2014 was 4.9±2.0×10^-12 ergs s^-1cm^-2). This flux is nearly equal to the X-ray minimum flux seen by RXTE in 2009, 2003.5, and 1998, and indicates that Eta Car has reached its X-ray minimum, as expected based on the 2024-day period derived from previous 2-10 keV observations with RXTE.

Swift XRT Eta Car 2-10 keV lightcurve through July 30 2014