ar X iv : a st ro - p h / 02 03 20 7 v 1 1 3 M ar 2 00 2 1 TIMING WITH THE EPIC PN CAMERA OF XMM - NEWTON

The EPIC pn CCD camera on board of XMM-Newton is designed to perform high throughput imaging and spectroscopy as well as high resolution timing observations in the energy range of 0.1–15keV. A temporal resolution of milliseconds or μ-seconds, depending on the instrument mode and detector, is outstanding for CCD based X-ray cameras. In order to calibrate the different observing modes of the EPIC pn CCD, XMM-Newton observations of the pulsars PSR B1509-58, PSR B0540-69 and the Crab were performed during the calibration and performance verification phase. To determine the accuracy of the on board clock against Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), PSR B1509-58 was observed simultaneously with XMM-Newton and RXTE in addition. The paper summarizes the current status of the clock calibration.