Completing a virgul2 deg * 3 deg scan of the Galactic centre lobe

We were recently awarded an XMM large program to scan the Galactic centre (GC)to verify whether the Galactic center lobe (GCL) is filled with warm, Xrayemitting plasma. We request to reobserve one 25 ks observation of that scanthat was affected by high background. Moreover, we ask 4 * 25 ks newobservations to complete (by combining the XMM with the Chandra data) a fullscan of the central 2deg * 2.8deg of the Milky Way, centred on the GCL. Thiswill allow us to determine the average GC soft Xray emission (at b virgul 0.31 deg)in regions not affected by the central outflow. This sensitive Xray map willalso be valuable for comparison with multiwavelength data. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]