source: trunk/htdocs/pulsar_archive_guide.html @ 200

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Further improvements to users guide.
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1<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"><html>
2<html>
3<head>
4<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles/standard.css" />
5<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles/query.css" />
6<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles/results.css" />
7<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles/atnf.css" />
8<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8759-1" />
9<meta name="DC.Creator" lang="en" content="personalName=Teoh,Albert" />
10<meta name="ATNF.Maintainer" content="contactName=Webmaster,the" />
11<meta name="DC.Title.alt" lang="en" content="" />
12<meta name="DC.Subject" lang="en" content="pulsar" />
13<meta name="DC.Description" lang="en" content="Searches the data archives at the ATNF" />
14<meta name="DC.Date.created" scheme="ISO8601" content="2002-12-12" />
15<meta name="ATNF.Site" content="Marsfield" />
16<meta name="ATNF.AccessPermission" content="Public" />
17<meta name="ATNF.MetaVersion" content="1.0" />
18</head>
19<title>ATNF Pulsar Data Archive: Users Guide</title>
20<body>
21<?php include_once("header.html"); ?>
22
23<h1>ATNF Pulsar Data Archive: Users Guide</h1>
24
25<center><i>This page is still under construction!</i></center>
26
27<h2>Introduction</h2>
28
29<p>The ATNF Pulsar Data Archive exists to allow astronomers access to
30observations of pulsars made with the Parkes radio telescope in the
31last two decades.</p>
32
33<p>The data comes either from the Parkes Southern Pulsar Survey (the
34"70cm Survey", Manchester et al. 1996, MN 279, 1235), or from
35observations of known pulsars with one of the Parkes instruments (WBC,
36DFB, CPSR2). We hope to make available data from the Multibeam Survey
37at some point in the near future.</p>
38
39<h2>Using the archive</h2>
40
41<h3>Overview</h3>
42
43<p>The Pulsar Data Archive provides a means for accessing observational
44data. Queries are made according to position on the sky and can be
45filtered by parameters such as data type and date.</p>
46
47<p>To download data, selections are made from the query results. These
48are stored in a "cart" from which they can be downloaded as a tar
49file. </p>
50
51<h3>How to make queries</h3>
52
53<p>The data is queried primarily on positional information. The user
54gives either a pulsar name or a RA/Dec position, plus a search
55radius. The pulsar name takes precedence over the RA/Dec position
56given, so to search by RA/Dec, make sure the pulsar name field is
57empty.</p>
58
59<h3>Query options</h3>
60
61<p>The query can be refined according to a number of parameters:
62<ul>
63  <li> Time: A time range for the observations can be specified. The
64  default values for this are given by the extent of the archive
65  (ie. the default "from" date is the earliest observation, and the
66  default "to" date is the latest).
67  <li> Obs Mode: The query can be restricted to only survey data (just
68  the 70cm survey for the moment), or only timing data
69  (ie. observations of a particular pulsar). The default is both
70  types.
71  <li> Data Type: One of the different instruments (WBC, DFB, CPSR2,
72  FB_1BIT) can be selected. The default is all of them.
73  <li> Frequency range: Multiple frequency bands can be selected from
74  the list.
75</ul></p>
76
77<p>The list of options on the left hand side shows the possible
78parameters that can be returned with your query. Note that not all
79fields will have values for all observations.</p>
80
81<p>The list can be ordered according to a limited range of these
82parameters: distance (from the query position - the default), date of
83observation, frequency, and filename.</p>
84
85<p>Finally, it is possible to search for calibration observations that
86were taken within a given time period of the science observations. To
87do so, check the box under "DISPLAY OTHER DATA" and set the time limit
88in which to search for Cals (the default is 30 minutes).</p>
89
90<h3>Navigating around the archive</h3>
91
92<p>The first page returned when you submit your query is the list of the
93first (up to) 20 observations. Only 20 observations are displayed at a
94time. You can move through the list by clicking on the page numbers
95above or below the table.</p>
96
97<p>Note that a limit of 1000 results is returned for the query -- if you
98are getting more than this, perhaps you can afford to narrow your
99search!</p>
100
101<p>In the top right, you will find information on the number of files and
102total size of the cart, as well as a navigation icon. When the Query
103Results page is displayed, the icon shown is that of the cart.
104Alternatively, when the list of cart items is displayed, the icon
105shown is that of the results table. Clicking on the icon takes you to
106the page depicted.</p>
107
108<center>
109<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="200px" cellhalign="center">
110  <tbody>
111    <tr>
112      <td align="center">
113        <img alt="Cart icon" border="0" title="Cart icon" src="/images/cart_30px_white.png"></img>
114      </td>
115     <td align="center">
116       <img alt="Table icon" border="0" title="Table icon" src="/images/table_30px_white.png"></img>
117     </td>
118   </tr>
119   <tr>
120   <td align="center">
121     Cart Icon
122   </td>
123   <td align="center">
124     Table Icon
125   </td>
126  </tr>
127 </tbody>
128</table>
129</center>
130
131<h3>Viewing profiles of pulsars</h3>
132
133<p>For some types of data, it is possible to view a pre-scrunched pulse
134profile. To do so, select the observations using the check boxes in
135the table, and select "View selected profiles" from the drop-down
136menu. This will display profile plots for all selected observations,
137unless they are unable to be pre-scrunched (for instance, survey
138observations).</p>
139
140<p>To return to the results table, click the table icon at top right.</p>
141
142<h3>Downloading data</h3>
143
144<p>Since there can be a large number of query results, spread over many
145pages, we have implemented the observation cart to act as a staging
146post for downloading data. Desired data is first saved to the cart
147using the drop-down menu, by selecting its check box. From the cart
148page, the drop-down menu offers the option of downloading either just
149the data or the data plus any cals that have been found. The data is
150returned in a tar file that can be saved to a local disk.</p>
151
152<h3>Caveats</h3>
153
154<p>The archive is still in a developmental stage, albeit a fairly
155complete one. The main area that needs some work is that many fields
156for a lot of the data files are not filled in. This will be rectified
157in the near future, but be aware that not all information will be
158present. Also note that not all fields <i>can</i> be filled in for
159each data file: e.g. survey data cannot have a period defined.</p>
160
161<h2>Acknowledgments</h2>
162
163
164
165<?php include_once("footer.html"); ?>
166</body>
167</html>
168
169
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