Letter to the Editor

First results from the INTEGRAL galactic plane scans ^*

¹ ESA-ESTEC, Research and Scientific Support Department, Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands e-mail: Christoph.Winkler@rssd.esa.int
² NASA-GSFC, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA e-mail: gehrels@gsfc.nasa.gov
³ MPE, Postfach 1603, 85740 Garching, Germany e-mail: vos@mpe.mpg.de;aws@mpe.mpg.de;cow@mpe.mpg.de
⁴ CESR, Boite Postale 4346, 31029 Toulouse, France e-mail: roques@sigma-0.cesr.cnes.fr
⁵ IASF-CNR, Via del Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133 Rome, Italy e-mail: ubertini@rm.iasf.cnr.it
⁶ Service d'Astrophysique, CEA-Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France e-mail: flebrun@cea.fr
⁷ DSRI, Juliane Maries Vej 30, 2100 Copenhagen OE, Denmark e-mail: nl@dsri.dk;njw@dsri.dk
⁸ ISDC, Chemin d'Écogia 16, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland e-mail: Volker.Beckmann@obs.unige.ch;Peter.Kretschmar@obs.unige.ch
⁹ Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Universität Tübingen, Sand 1, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
¹⁰ CNR-IASF, via Bassini 15, 20133 Milano, Italy e-mail: sandro@mi.iasf.cnr.it

Corresponding author: C. Winkler, Christoph.Winkler@rssd.esa.int

Received: 7 July 2003
Accepted: 27 August 2003

Abstract

Scans of the Galactic plane performed at regular intervals constitute a key element of the guaranteed time observations of the INTEGRAL observing programme. These scans are done for two reasons: frequent monitoring of the Galactic plane in order to detect transient sources, and time resolved mapping of the Galactic plane in continuum and diffuse line emission. This paper describes first results obtained from the Galactic plane scans executed so far during the early phase (Dec. 2002–May 2003) of the nominal mission.