Transcript The ATNF Pulsar Data Archive

The ATNF Pulsar Data Archive
Matthew Whiting (ATNF)
Albert Teoh, David Smith, Lucyna Kedziora-Chudczer,
Dick Manchester, Vince McIntyre
2nd Gravitational Wave Workshop, 13 December 2007
About the Pulsar Data Archive
• The aim is to make available the observational data from
Parkes pulsar observations: both timing and surveys.
• Survey data important – can be used to search for new sources
using novel techniques.
• Provides a historical record of pulsar timing data.
• A key element of being a National Facility.
• http://pulsararchive-int.atnf.csiro.au
• Currently the page is visible only from within ATNF
• Will be released early in the new year.
CSIRO. ATNF Pulsar Data Archive
What Data is available?
• New addition to the database is survey data:
• Parkes Southern Pulsar Survey, a.k.a. the 70-cm Survey. Covers
the entire southern hemisphere.
• 1-bit filterbank data, which has been converted from the original
filterbank format to PSRFITS, a FITS- and VO-compliant format.
• All the survey data present, plus a large number of timing
observations in the same format.
• Parkes Multibeam Survey data will be converted and incorporated
in the near future.
• Rest of the data is observations of known pulsars
• Variety of data types: CPSR2, DFB, WBC
• Matching calibration observations are also present for download.
CSIRO. ATNF Pulsar Data Archive
How does the archive work?
• Purpose is to provide access to the observational files.
• Main query mechanism is by position
• Pulsar Name: position taken from psrcat.
• RA and Dec
• Search radius around the given position.
• Search takes into account the beam size of each observation
• Ability to filter the search, to reduce the number of results or
find something specific.
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Observation date
Data type (CPSR2, DFB, …)
Frequency band (broad bands: 70cm, 50cm, 20cm, …)
Observing mode: survey, timing, both
• Can view the pulse profiles of timing data.
• Download the data via a tar file.
CSIRO. ATNF Pulsar Data Archive
Virtual Observatory Cone Search
• Want to make the archive VO compliant, so that queries can be
made through the Virtual Observatory framework.
• Use the IVOA Simple Cone Search Standard to allow
position+radius queries on the archive.
• This only allows queries of what files are present that satisfy
the search criteria - they cannot be downloaded.
• The user would then go to the web page to access the files.
• The Cone Search returns an XML file in the VOTable format.
This can be read by software such as TOPCAT or similar.
• The Cone Search will be registered in a VO registry when the
archive goes online.
CSIRO. ATNF Pulsar Data Archive