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
CSIRO. ATNF Pulsar Data Archive 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. 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. 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.