Data Quick Look Tools

These tools exploit the TelCal solutions for the calibrator data as well as other monitoring data (e.g., weather). The data is available during the course of the observation and as the files are small, this information can be reviewed while you are downloading the actual data from the archive. This information provides good information on the overall data quality and can be used to guide flagging, however, there is no substitute for looking at the actual raw data; TelCal/AntSol are works in progress and successful/failed solutions by the online system may not always translate to good/bad data.

pl_ tools (local)

Three types of data from antsol/telcal are plotted. For reference, the antsol files for September are in /home/mchammer/evladata/telcal/2010/09/*.GN but a user does not need to know this.

Example, at a unix prompt:

cd /users/vdhawan/look

pl_AP 09 AB1346\*55453 0

pl_DQ 09 AB1346\*55453

pl_OB 09 AB1346\*55453 0

The plot is interactive, xmgrace.

Use the up/down arrows to scroll through the antennas.

Use the AX button to auto X zoom, or ZX to pick an X-range with cursor.

Avoid the AS (autoscale), ZY and AY buttons, they mess up the vertical scale. If you do, just exit and replot. I'll write more help when I can.

For details, see: http://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/Grace/doc/UsersGuide.html

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pl_AP - Amp&Phase, 1 plot each. 4 colours = one subband from each of the basebands ABCD. Default REFant is 24 (or 1,2.. if others absent).

pl_DQ - Data Quality, an overview of the whole dataset, 1 plot with all subbands,basebands ABCD from bottom to top. Antsol amplitude /strong/modest/poor/absent/ are /green/grey/red/blank/.

pl_OB - 1 plot with pointing Offsets, 1 with fitted Beamwidths (az,el, R,L) This one is less for general use. I'm mostly using it to compare pointing from different RSRO subbands.

pl_APD 1 plot each for Amp, Phase, Delay.

Amplitude scale is ~40mJy to ~40Jy, with ~1Jy midscale. these are raw, uncalibrated ampl.

Phase scale is one full turn.

Delay scale is +_100nsec.

The 4 colours per antenna are A,B,C,D = R1, R2, L1, L2.

There are 3 compulsory arguments,

$1 = mm = 2 digit month.

$2 = project code or some unique string. The antsol data are in a file named by month, project code and MJD that it ran. To select on this, it is best to show an example:

All projects on a given day, MJD 55450 (a bit much!), subband 0:

pl_AP 09 55450 0

If you know your project code and day it ran (see the archive tool) you can enter that, using the * wildcard:

pl_AP 09 AB1346\*55452 0

To find out what projects ran in a given month:

ls -ltr /home/mchammer/evladata/telcal/2010/09/*.GN

$3 = IF identifier, integer 0,1...n, the number of subbands per baseband.

This is a bit confusing because the identifier is not the same as elsewhere in the system. For example, OSRO data has IFid=0 and will have data for A,B,C,D for OSRO-1 and A,C for OSRO-2. RSRO data (at least for now, with 8-bit) will have IFid A0-A7, B0-B7 etc.

Bottom line - IFid 0 is present for OSRO & RSRO, higher IFid only for RSRO.

Plotting tools (on-line)

Weather

An API plotter is available here:

• https://webtest.aoc.nrao.edu/cgi-bin/thunter/api.cgi

Bandpass

A bandpass plotter is available here:

• https://webtest.aoc.nrao.edu/cgi-bin/thunter/bptool.cgi

TelCal Gains (GN)

• https://webtest.aoc.nrao.edu/cgi-bin/thunter/plotgains.cgi

TelCal Pointing (PNT)

• https://webtest.aoc.nrao.edu/cgi-bin/thunter/plotpointing.cgi

-- JosephMcMullin - 28 Sep 2010