Data Reduction and Archive

Data Reduction:

• GBTIDL: An interactive package for reduction and analysis of spectral line data taken with the GBT.
• PRESTO: A large suite of pulsar search and analysis software
• CASA: The Common Astronomy Software Applications

Data Archive Policy:

All scientific data from NRAO telescopes are stored in an archive (with the current exception of some pulsar data taken with the GBT's GUPPI backend). The archive contains the raw data: GBT files in FITS binary table format, export files from the VLA, and FITS-IDI files from the VLBA, including correlated data from any non-VLBA telescopes that have been used in conjunction with the VLBA. These data are reserved for the exclusive use of the observing team for a fixed period after the last observing session of a project has been completed. This proprietary period is 12 months following the last observation.

In certain circumstances (e.g. multi-epoch monitoring projects or projects that require several VLA configurations) the default proprietary period may be lengthened by the NRAO Time Allocation Commitee. Additonally, some Rapid Response Science proposals, in particular "Exploratory Time" and "Target of Opportunity", have shorter proprietary periods. All data, taken as part of instrument calibration, engineering or software testing are immediately public with no proprietary period.

 

GBT Interim Data Archive:

All GBT data currently resides within the interim GBT data archive.  It will be moved to the main NRAO archive in the future.  The interim archive has a fairly straightforward directory structure and appears under /home. It is divided into 3 parts, pre February 2003 data, post Februrary 2003 data and gbtlogs. Data from prior to Feb 2003 appears under early data and is treated differently from later data. Post Feb 2003 data is divided into 4 sections, science data, testing data, junk data and problem data. The directory names are self explanatory except for the problem data directory. This contains data directories that do not conform to the naming convention sufficiently well to be placed in one of the science, testing or junk directories. At the current time these directories cannot be safely renamed.