6dF workshsopATNF May 30th dF: Observing, data reduction & dataflow Q.A.Parker Macquarie University/AAO

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Talk outline Brief summary of observing procedure 6dF data reduction with 6dFdr & runz Dataflow

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th 20023

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Current 6dF observing team: Malcolm Hartley (observing management) Paul Cass (6dFdr) Ken Russell Fred Watson Dionne James (Bessell BOM programme) Will Saunders (post commissioning development, observing) Other 6dfsag members/qap as required

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Standard 6dF Observing process Selection of `tiles’ from latest tiling run sufficient to cover night/run Consistent directory structure and field naming conventions ensures no confusion of input files, configure files etc for each nights observations Potential targets cross-checked against SCOS image thumbnails to remove contaminants prior to configuration.fld files created for each `cleaned’ tile pointing – includes merging in of suitable Tycho-2 guide stars 6dfconfigure run on.fld files for given field plate (takes into account broken fibres etc)

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Standard 6dF.fld file structure * comment line - 6dF field configuration file (an ascii file) LABEL target field number 1 xyz cluster UTDATE EQUINOX J CENTRE * end of required header info * these are fiducial star positions F F brightest star F F fiducial star * these are target object positions NGC P galaxy target ic P galaxy target PHR P galaxy target.. etc up to 200 say * these are checked blank sky positions * sky S blank sky (checked) sky S blank sky (checked).. etc up to 20 (say)

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Observing process cont. Once field configuration has been tested the output configuration (.sds file) is input to the robot configure software Configuration typically takes an hour for a full 150 fibre field If possible first 2 fields will have been prepared earlier in the afternoon with the first ready to go before the end of astronomical twilight Availability of two field plates enables one to be configured whilst the other is being observed minutes are needed to mount each fibred 6dF field plate in the telescope, take dome flat-fields and arc frames and for acquiring the field on the sky. Acquire both 600V (1 hr) and 316R (0.5hr) observations for each field 5 fields per night have been achieved during the winter lunations and 3 are possible in the summer lunations

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th dF R-theta robot and field plate

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Data acquisition via 6dF CICADA CICADA has been customised for 6dF in the following ways: A 6dF instrument configuration plug- in added An interface to the UK Schmidt TEL_CONTROL built as a TCS plug-in A FITS plug-in written to insert 6dF BINTABLE extensions describing the 6dF instrument configuration

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th dF commissioning data frame Night sky lines Blue regionRed region Emission lines

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th dFdr: creating 1-D calibrated spectra Directly analogous to 2dFdr – has same basic functionality and very similar GUI Specifically modified to work with 6dF data frames by Jeremy Bailey (AAO) After some development now offers a relatively stable platform for reduction on standard 6DFGRS data almost as a `black box’ Care needs to be taken with the observations to ensure trouble free processing through the 6dfdr package

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Running 6dFdr Requires at least 1 Flat field frame, 1 arc frame and 3 or more data frames 6dfdr runs on Starlink sdf files so need to convert from cicada output fits images (tool available e.g. fits2ndf) Once 6dfdr is launched simply a question of going to `setup’ menu & select prefix identifying frames in the run Select the Flat field - reduce it - check tram line fitting is o.k. Select the Arc - reduce Arc Select data frames – reduce data frames Combine the individual reduced data frames Plot spectra from combined reduced frames to check o.k. Exit 6dfdr and cleanup all unwanted files

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th R data

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th RUNZ: semi-automated Z determinations Modified version of the code developed principally by Will Sutherland for the 2dFGRS. Offers a convenient mechanism for interactive redshift estimation from 1-D 6dfdr reduced spectra Some extra functionality offered by WS/QAP Currently need to reduce the 600V and 316R data separately though are plans to splice the 2 slightly overlapping regions together after attempting flux-calibration Still needs modifications to make it run more smoothly with 6dfdr reduced data (was developed for and works better with a wider wavelength coverage than 600V and 316R provide alone).

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Can autofit to selected lines…

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th dF WWW interface & form of data product The www interface will provide access to the reduced survey data in the form of object parameters for each object together with their associated reduced 6dF spectra. For each observed object we would provide a minimum of: object ID & position (J2000 ra,dec) + optional l,b 2MASS J,H,K photometry (with errors), DENIS I-band magnitude (with error) classification/spectral type (e.g. galaxy, AGN, stellar contaminant etc) redshift, z error, optical magnitude structural image information from the SCOS optical parameter lists fully reduced 1-D spectra Basic ancillary information for each entry such as date of observation, grating, 6dF field plate, fibre number etc

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Higher dispersion 600V data Additionally the velocity dispersions from the 600V data would include most of the above parameters plus measurements (with errors) of: velocity dispersion & line indices, galaxy diameters, distance estimates peculiar velocities. The www interface would permit all (or a selection) of the object parameters to be down-loaded including an option to down-load the associated 1-D spectra. The interface would also permit direct access to the raw/partially processed image frames via a suitable query system and survey field map. It is estimated that 3 months of software effort would be required to produce such an interface based On PERL scripts.

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Dataflow to Database Final details still to be sorted Involves assimilation of reduced spectra AND redshift/peculiar velocity results into the current master results catalogue Results catalogue contains observed objects from the master input catalogue

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th WFAU 6dF involvement includes: Involvement in survey data products management commissioning support (qap - done) help with target catalogue construction (mar/qap done) archival of survey data products community access to the data products via development of suitable www interface keen scientific interest in survey exploitation (Andy Taylor, Dan Burkey, Andy Lawrence) PhD student (started Oct 2000)

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th Data and information flow in the 6DFGRS

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th

6dF workshsopATNF May 30th