  We report the results from a spatially resolved spectroscopy study with
XMM-Newton on the relaxed cluster of galaxies Abell 478. From the EPIC data we
extract a temperature profile and radial abundance profiles for Ne, Mg, Si, S,
Ca, Fe and Ni. The abundance profiles follow the same trends as observed in
other clusters. The spectra of the core of the cluster can be best fitted with
a multi-temperature model. We argue that this multi-temperature behavior is
mostly due to projection effects, because of the strong temperature gradient in
the core. Contributions from other effects, for example, intrinsic temperature
stratification cannot be fully excluded. For the first time we measure an
underabundance of oxygen in the Galactic absorption component toward a cluster.
The measured oxygen abundance in this absorber is about 0.5 times the solar
oxygen abundance as determined by Anders & Grevesse (1989).
