1996A&A...311...35V

We report on a 31.4ks ROSAT HRI observation of NGC 4631. The good spatial resolution of the HRI together with the reanalysed PSPC data leads to a detection of 7 point sources within the D₂₅ ellipse of the galaxy. With the HRI we were able to resolve previously reported X-ray emission of the HI supershell no.2 into (at least) two point like sources (L_x=1.7 and 0.3x10³⁹erg/s). A bright point source at the position of the HI supershell no. 1 is time variable and therefore could either be an X-ray binary in the spiral arms (L_x> 5x10³⁸erg/s) or a background AGN. Hot gas in the disk and halo of the galaxy is visible in the X-ray images. The HRI deduced diffuse X-ray emission within the D₂₅ ellipse of the galaxy (S_x=8.7x10³⁷erg/s/arcmin²) and the halo (S_x=2.1x10³⁷erg/s/arcmin²) are comparable with the PSPC results. An arc of diffuse emission in the adaptive filtered HRI map extends from the nuclear region into the south-eastern HI arm of the galaxy and may represent an UV emission feature.