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The Multimission Archive at STScI Newsletter
June 5, 1998
Space Telescope Science Institute
Volume 4
The Multimission Archive at STScI (MAST) Newsletter disseminates
information to users of the HST, IUE, Copernicus, EUVE, UIT, and
VLA-FIRST data archives supported by the MAST. Inquiries should be
sent to archive@stsci.edu.
the Hubble Data Archive (HDA), as of May 1998, contains over 4.9
Terabytes of science and engineering data, for a total of
approximately 140,000 science exposures. In the past few months the
volume of archived data has reached average rates of about 4 - 5
Gigabytes/day, while 3 - 4 times as many data per day have been
retrieved by archive users.
the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) Final Archive. This
contains over 104,000 spectral images of approximately 10,000
individual astronomical sources (covering the 1,200 to 3,350
Angstroms range) obtained by IUE over the course of its lifetime
(from 1978 to 1996). Experienced IUE staff members are also
available to assist researchers working on IUE data.
the Copernicus Archive. This includes far- (900 - 1,560 Angstroms)
and near- (1,650 - 3,150 Angstroms) ultraviolet spectra of 551
objects, primarily bright stars, obtained by the Copernicus
satellite, otherwise known as the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 3
(OAO-3), from 1972 to 1981.
the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) Archive, which at present
contains spectroscopic observations (in the 70 - 760 Angstroms range)
of about 300 sources, mostly Galactic. EUVE, launched in 1992, is
still operational.
the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT) Archive. This contains 758
images of 193 targets (covering the 1,200 - 3,300 Angstroms range)
obtained by UIT-2 as part of the ASTRO-2 mission. UIT-1 data will be
supported in the near future.
the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-centimeters (FIRST)
Archive. The FIRST project is designed to produce a radio survey at
20 cm (1.4 GHz) of over 10,000 square degrees down to a flux of 1
mJy. STScI provides access to the radio images and the source
catalog, which currently includes about 437,000 entries, at
http://sundog.stsci.edu.
the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS). The Catalogs and Surveys Branch of
the STScI has been digitizing the photographic Sky Survey plates from
the Palomar and UK Schmidt telescopes in order to support HST
operations and provide a service to the astronomical community.
STScI plans to incorporate additional ultraviolet and optical data
sets into the STScI archive in the future, including data from the
Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) currently scheduled for
launch in early 1999. The Multimission Archive at STScI can be
accessed at
http://archive.stsci.edu/mast.html. E-mail inquiries
about the STScI data archives can be directed to
archive@stsci.edu.
Using this interface, you can select Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) by
class, redshift, magnitude, and 6cm radio flux from a catalog based
on the Veron-Cetty & Veron (1996) catalog, and cross-correlate them
with the HST, IUE, and EUVE archives. (For HST, you can select
individual instruments, each with a different correlation radius.)
Multiple missions can also be selected, with the option to show only
those AGN that cross-correlate with EVERY selected mission (so you
can look for AGN that have been observed with both HST and IUE, or
for AGN observed with either HST or IUE.) After the correlation is
performed, you can preview the images/spectra (at present only in the
case of HST data), and retrieve the data.
This new interface is part of our effort to let the user take
advantage of the MAST (Multimission Archive at STScI) by allowing the
cross-correlation of astronomical catalogs with the various archives
available. We are expanding this interface by including cluster,
galaxy, and stellar catalogs. At present, a user-supplied list of
positions can also be cross-correlated with any of the MAST archives.
All archival researchers are invited to use this new service and let
us know how we can improve it. As usual, all comments and inquiries
should be directed to
archive@stsci.edu.
UIT was one of three instruments which comprised the ASTRO 1 mission
flown on the space shuttle Columbia from December 2-10, 1990. The
second ASTRO flight, aboard Endeavor, was from March 3-17, 1995. The
UIT mission has been managed by Principal Investigator Theodore P.
Stecher of the GSFC Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics
(LASP). UIT exposures were obtained on 70-mm photographic film and
later digitized using a Perkin-Elmer microdensitometer. Image
resolution was 3" over a 40' field of view and exposures were made in
the 1200-3300 Angstrom range using broadband filters. UIT-1 obtained
821 exposures of 66 targets and UIT-2 obtained 758 images of 193
targets.
and MAST staff members worked
together to obtain a copy of the UIT-2 data from the UIT project.
MAST was then provided a copy of the UIT-2 data and the associated
database. MAST staff will now fill moderate requests for UIT-2 data.
MAST plans to archive both UIT-1 and 2 data but has not yet received
a copy of the UIT-1 data. UIT-1 data will continue to be available
through NDADS
(http:///ndads.gsfc.nasa.gov/ndads/archives_homepage.html)
- Karen Levay
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