1. Rolf Mewe: a career devoted to X-ray spectroscopy Jelle S. Kaastra SRON

2. Rolf Mewe: 20 July 1935 – 4 May 2004

3. Early career Taken by his father to space travel lectures 1952 1956 study at Zeeman lab, Amsterdam with Klinkenberg (“old fashioned spectroscopy”) 1959-1961 Army service, study of radio-active fall out 1961-1970 Rijnhuizen, study of gas discharges and hot fusion plasmas; thesis 1969 with C. Braams and H.G. van Bueren

4. SRON SRON (predecessors) founded 1961 by Kees de Jager Bert Brinkman had solar X-ray observations Rolf Mewe appointed at SRON 1970: simple task: “develop X-ray spectroscopy” Rolf’s own words in 2000: “I was so naïve to promise to try this”

5. The ANS satellite First Dutch Satellite Launch 1974 Soft X-rays (0.25 keV) Discovery of X-rays from Sirius (Nature paper Mewe et al. 1975)

6. Chandra Rolf involved in making science case and simulations for AXAF  Chandra LETGS his favorite spectrometer Won lottery to be at launch of Chandra

7. Other satellites ANS 1974 Einstein 1978 EXOSAT 1984 YOHKOH 1991 EUVE 1992 ASCA 1993 BeppoSAX 1996 Chandra & XMM-Newton 1999

8. Spectral simulations

9. Spectroscopic codes 1972 Mewe 1975 Mewe-Gronenschild 1985 Mewe-Gronenschild-van den Oord 1990 Meka 1994 Mekal 1992  SPEX

10. Most cited X-ray papers (ADS) AuthorsYearCitations Raymond & Smith19771413 Morrison & McCammon (abs)19831270 Tanaka et al. (ASCA)1994719 Lampton et al. (parameters)1976712 Giacconi et al. (Einstein)1979621 Mewe, Gronenschild & vdOord1985614

11. He-like line diagnostics Work on He-like triplets with Hans Schrijver 1975-1980 Recently followed up with Delphine Porquet et al.

12. DEM modeling, stellar work Collaboration with many people Janusz Sylwester Karel Schrijver Manuel Güdel And many others

13. Rolf and his Army Thanks to alternative civilian service, well- educated conscientious objectors served Rolf as unpaid data-aids: Frans Alkemade Remco van der Rijst Max Duijsens

14. Meka Development triggered by needs of SNR work at SRON- Leiden around 1990 Restructuring the Mewe-Gronenschild- vdOord code and improving continuum NEI effects

15. Meka  Mekal (1994)

16. The Mekal code

17. Rolf at work

18. Rolf and his office Filling the new office Fully loaded …

19. Rolf as a teacher What is this about? Aha!

20. Rolf as a project leader

21. Some characteristic poses

22. The future of SPEX Code is maintained and updated by Kaastra & Raassen, see @ sron web-site

23. Dying in the armour… “niets bestaat dat niet iets anders aanraakt” (“nothing exists that does not touch something else”)