Manual Data Reduction Checklist

  1. Read the SB name from the SCOPS-DR ticket where you have been notified of your assignment
  2. In the OT, pull out the project from the archive, familiarize yourself with the science goal as well as the Science Goals's (SG) requested rms noise and resolution. Note that, for a 7m dataset, the SG requested rms and resolution do not directly apply to the 7-m-only dataset, since those requests are intended for the 12m + 7m dataset. This is also valid for multi-arrays SGs.
  3. In your lustre area, create a directory structure:
    • ./2013.1.00661.S_uid___A001_X122_X18f (where 2013.1.00661.S is the project code and uid___A001_X122_X18f is the MOUS uid )
    • ./2013.1.00661.S_uid___A001_X122_X18f/Calibration_X001 (where X001 is the final extension of the first EB UID, as in X2cd).
    • ./2013.1.00661.S_uid___A001_X122_X18f/Calibration_X00N (where X00N is the final extension of the Nth EB UID).
    • ./2013.1.00661.S_uid___A001_X122_X18f/Imaging -
  4. Move each adsm from your lustre area to the corresponding Calibration_X00N directory
  5. In each Calibration_X000N directory, in CASA 4.5:
    • Make sure your cvs file is up-to-date so that the almaAntPos.txt file is up-to-date (especially for Cycle 3 data)
    • Generate the data reduction script: type es.generateReducScript('asdmname'). This step will also import the asdm and create a .ms directory, which contains the data.
      • The script generator must be called with the option lbc=True for Cycle 3 LBC data.
    • Run the data reduction script in CASA execfile('.scriptForCalibration.py'). You could run it step by step or all at once, by defining the variable mysteps.
    • Modify the data reduction script based on your visibilities and caltables assessments. Also see modification suggestions in Data Reduction - Manual Calibration
    • Once you are happy with the script, annotate the changes made on it and run it all at once.
    • Run the QA2 report: es.generateQA2Report('uid___whatever.ms','uid___whatever.ms.split',refAnt='antenna_name')
    • copy the .ms.split.cal directory in the Imaging directory
  6. In the Imaging directory:
    • Download the template scripts in https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/NAASC/NAImagingScripts#TheScripts, change its name to scriptForImaging.py and scriptForImagingPrep.py
    • Modify the two scripts according to the proposal needs. Follow the guidelines instructions in The Imaging Groupe page. You do not need to image every line or every source, but you should produce images that are relevant to their scientific goals, and that reach (when possible) the SG requested spatial and spectral resolution and sensitivity. Note that, for a 7m dataset, the SG requested rms and resolution do not directly apply to the 7-m-only dataset, since those requests are intended for the 12m + 7m dataset. This is also true for multi-arrays SGs.
    • Run the scripts in CASA 4.5, and interactively modify them so as to reach the SG requested quality (or as close as possible Note that those requirements do not apply to 7m-only data.).
    • The imaging script contains steps to automatically generate the fits images that will be delivered to the PI. Those are the primary beam corrected images (.pbcor), the primary beams (.flux), and the clean masks (.mask).
    • once the imaging and imagingPrep scripts are finalized, add annotations so it can be understood and re-run by the PI
  7. Make an assessment of the achieved noise rms (for the representative bandwidth at the representative frequency) and resolution, and compare to the SG requested noise rms and resolution. Note that in the case of 7m-only data, you cannot directly compare the achieved rms to the SG request. In this case, you should only verify whether the expected on-source integration time was obtained and whether high flagging rates were applied. The DRM will carry out the QA2 assessment.
  8. Copy the README file to the /Reduce_X29a directory, and fill it: cp /users/thunter/AIV/science/qa2/README.header.cycle2.txt ./README.header.txt (cp /users/thunter/AIV/science/qa2/README.header.cycle2.txt ./README.header.txt for Cycle 3). For the 'configuration' entry, put the longest baseline.
  9. On the SCOPS-DR ticket, warn the DRM that your data reduction is ready for review
  10. Give feedback on script generator bugs, qa2 report bugs
  11. If you had to flag an entire antenna or spw, or have seen anything odd with the data, go ahead and file a JIRA PRTSPR ticket to report the issues (see ProblemReport)

-- ArielleMoullet - 2015-01-06
Topic revision: r21 - 2016-01-12, ArielleMoullet
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