Evidence of residual soft X-ray emission at < 2 keV around the brightest QSO in the MQN01 field, ID1, assuming all emission within the central 2″ is due to the AGN. This results in a conservative estimate of the extended component, which is likely non-zero even within this region. Radial profiles of surface counts centred on the QSO ID1, derived from the data (black dots) and the simulated PSF+background (red dots). Profiles are presented for two observed energy bands: 0.5–2 keV (left), 2–10 keV (middle), and 0.8–2 keV (right). Radial bins are defined such that each contains sufficient counts to achieve S/N > 3. The lower panels display residuals, expressed in units of σ, as a function of radial bin. The dashed blue line marks the background level, and the horizontal dashed lines in the residual panels correspond to the −2σ, 0σ, and +2σ levels.