A multi-coloured survey of NGC 253 with XMM-Newton: testing the methods used for creating luminosity functions from low-count data

Abstract

NGC 253 is a local, starbursting spiral galaxy with strong X-ray emission from hot gas, as well as many point sources. We have conducted a spectral survey of the X-ray population of NGC 253 using a deep XMM-Newton observation. NGC 253 only accounts for ~20 per cent of the XMM-Newton EPIC field of view, allowing us to identify ~100 X-ray sources that are unlikely to be associated with NGC 253. Hence, we were able to make a direct estimate of contamination from, for example, foreground stars and background galaxies.