Australia Telescope Online Archive

The Australia Telescope Online Archive (ATOA) is an online data store that contains the raw (uncalibrated) data files from Compact Array observations taken since 1990. These data are stored in a large number of files in RPFITS format, with approximately two terabytes of data in total. Currently, copies of the archive files are provided on request, by manually copying the files onto CDs that are then sent by post.

To facilitate and encourage greater use of the archive files, the ATNF and the ICT Centre in Canberra have developed a new system that will replace the manual handling of archive data and allow users to directly access the data files via an easy-to-use web interface. To facilitate the querying of the data files, Robin Wark (ATNF), Dr Peter Lamb, Robert Power and colleagues (ICT Centre) transferred the archive to disk and developed software to construct metadata derived from the file headers. This and other related information are stored in an Oracle database. The data archive and software are now being transferred from Canberra to the ATNF site in Marsfield. The web-interface to support the querying and downloading of data has recently been developed by the ATNF webmaster (Christopher Owen). We plan to release the ATOA in November 2004.

Data access conditions

We advise users that to make the archive data more accessible (in line with other archive facilities) and to facilitate the automatic handling of archive requests, the ATNF has introduced a change in the data access conditions. For standard data files the data access conditions now state that:

"data obtained from the ATNF facilities will be made available to other users on request 18 months after the observation date, unless a special case for extended proprietary rights is accepted by the Director or Time Allocation Committee. The ATNF Director may override the release of data at his discretion."

This replaces the previous data access conditions where data were made available on request 18 months after the end of observations.

The ATOA will also allow observers to access their own data taken during the previous 18 months. In this case the data access will be provided via a project-based password that will be issued to the project principal investigator.

For further information please contact Jessica Chapman.

Jessica Chapman
(Jessica.Chapman@csiro.au)