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Welcome to GLAST's Standard Analysis Environment (SAE)! The SAE consists of the basic tools necessary to analyze GLAST data. And this is the place to begin to learn how to install and use these tools.

The documentation consists of four sections that will be useful to you at different stages of your mastery of the SAE:

• Installing the science tools—instructions for setting up the analysis tools on the different supported operating systems
• Analysis threads—step by step descriptions of standard analyses, including a very basic crash course
• Cicerone—a detailed description of the analysis environment and its methodology. The entire Cicerone is also available in one printable Word document.
• Reference manual—a brief description of each tool and its input

So how should you begin? This depends on your learning style. If you have a basic understanding of the methods of gamma-ray astronomy, know something about the LAT and the GBM, and like to learn by example, then you might want to start by installing the science tools, and then work through some of the analysis threads. In particular, you might want to start with the crash course.

On the other hand, if you are new to gamma-ray astronomy, or you would like a more systematic approach, then you might want to start by reading the Cicerone.

However you start, as you become an advanced user you might want to delve into the methodology behind the tools that the Cicerone describes. To learn about all of a tool's parameters or to remember how to use a tool with which you are already familiar, see the Reference Manual.

The documentation is written to be comprehensive and self-contained, and we will update it based on the comments from the user community. If you have some questions, you should first check the GSSC Frequently-Asked-Questions; your question may already have been answered. Finally, you can request assistance through the GSSC helpdesk.

GLAST Science Tools Reference Manual

Running the Science Tools