WFCAM PROJECTS

PLEASE NOTE:  WFCAM data are processed at the Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU) and served out via the WFCAM Science Archive (WSA),  which is part of the Wide Field Astronomy Unit hosted by the Institute for Astronomy, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.  This applies to all WFCAM data – UKIDSS, PATT, UH, Japanese, Korean and UKIRT service programmes.

PROJECT STATUS

Project home  page

PATT, Service, UH, Japanese and Korean PIs may follow this link to their project home page at JAC.  You will be asked to login using the project ID (e.g. U/09B/H1, U/10A/J3, etc.).  If you don’t have one, please contact your support scientist).   From this homepage you may view which MSBs have been observed (and which remain in the queue), and gain access to observing logs, weather stats, etc. for the nights when data were secured. NOTE: WFCAM data are not available from this homepage.

DATA PROCESSING

Data access timescales	PI project data are processed by CASU, usually within a few days of arriving in the UK (raw data are ftp-ed to Cambridge daily).  Flat file access is often made available within a month of receipt at the WFCAM Science archive, WSA.  NOTE THAT IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU REGISTER YOUR PROJECT WITH THE WSA AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE (see link below).
Data processing status at CASU	Progress of data reduction at CASU. Each table also gives access to nightly plots and logs of seeing, zero-points, sky brightness, etc. These logs can be very useful as a guide to the overall quality of your data!
Data ingest  status at WSA	Following pipeline reduction in Cambridge (at CASU), all WFCAM data are transferred to Edinburgh where they are ingested into the WFCAM Science Archive (WSA).  Use this link to check the ingest status at WSA.

WFCAM SCIENCE ARCHIVE (WSA)

WFCAM Science Archive  Homepage	Homepage of the WFCAM Science Archive (WSA). This page provides user documentation, information on queries, cookbooks and access to your fully-reduced data. Note in particular the non-Survey link on the sidebar.
WFCAM Science Archive  REGISTRATION	You MUST register your PATT, UH, Japanese, Korean or Service project with the science archive.  WSA refer to ALL non-UKIDSS data as non-Survey (see their sidebar). You will need your project ID (e.g. U/SERV/9999, U/09B/J1, etc.) and the project title. You will be informed by the science archive (via email) when your data are ready for retrieval.
Data conversion	Brief description of how to convert from the WFCAM Science archive Multiextension FITS format (MEF) into Starlink .sdf files
WFCAM data cookbook	A cookbook giving tips on what to expect from the WFCAM science archive, how to process your imaging and/or photometry tables, etc.

ACCESS TO RAW DATA

Raw data	UKIRT’s current policy on access to raw WFCAM data (this applies to ALL non-UKIDSS observer – PATT, U.H., Japanese and Korean)
Disk connection policy	A policy statement on external disk connections at the summit, and notes on other ways to copy raw data directly. (This page is on the Public Wiki.)
CASU raw data archive	Raw WFCAM data can be provided on a best-efforts basis direct from the CASU near-line archive. Note that you will need to be registered; this page gives contact information for this.

DATA RIGHTS

Proprietary policy

Statement of UKIRT Proprietary data period.

---

CASSEGRAIN PROJECTS

The links below DO NOT APPLY TO WFCAM. UKIRT’s suite of cassegrain instruments include UIST, UFTI, CGS4 and the polarimetry module, IRPOL.

UKIRT flexed Cassegrain data are available from the UKIRT OMP feedback system.  

To retrieve data for your PATT programme, you will need:

1. The proposal ID (usually u/semester/nn; note that if your project id number is below 10, you must not add a leading zero)
2. The proposal password (if you don’t know the password for your project, then you can ask for a new one to be sent to the project PI.)

The table below gives (i) a brief reminder for those who have used the system before, with a link to the data page, and (ii) links to the detailed documentation.

DATA RIGHTS

Proprietary Policy

Statement of UKIRT Proprietary data period.

DATA RETRIEVAL

Retrieve and view project data

Follow the link to the left, which takes you to your project home page (you will be asked to login using the ID and password as above)Note the list of MSBs observed (if N(repeats) is set to zero, the MSB was only fetched, not executed)Click on a UT date to access the data for a given nightThen either Click on “Retrieve data with calibrations” or “Retrieve data excluding calibrations” (the former will give all photometric calibrations for the night; the latter will give all calibrations associated with your programme only).or Use the links at the righthand end of the night’s observations table to view selected reduced frames. Note that these frames remain on disk only for a week or so.

FITS – SDF Conversions

Notes on how to convert to and from the Starlink SDF format in which UKIRT instruments store their data.

RELEVANT DOCUMENTATION

OMP web page usage	This document gives descriptions and screen shots of all the relevant parts of the OMP system.
Viewing reduced data products online	The link to the left takes you to the subsection of the “OMP web page usage” document describing data monitoring and eavesdropping.
Retrieving data	The link to the left takes you to the subsection of the “OMP web page usage” document describing data retrieval screens.