Example lightcurves taken directly from the 3XMM catalogue. a) 3XMM J111146.1-762010 = CHX 18N – T Tau-type star showing a short flare b) 3XMM J000619.5+201210, A Seyfert 1, Markarian 335. c) 3XMM J184916.1+652943, a new 1.6 h polar (Webb et al., in prep.). d) A 2MASS star (2MASS J00025638-3004447) showing two large flares. e) 3XMM J002159.4+614254, a new X-ray object showing a strong decline in flux. Possibly a gamma-ray burst afterglow. f) 3XMM J013334.0+303211, a high mass X-ray binary in M 33, M33 X-7, showing a 12.5 h eclipse – the first eclipsing stellar-mass black hole binary discovered (Pietsch et al. 2006).