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P4.7: Deshpande, Shubhankar
Shubhankar Deshpande (National Center for Radio Astrophysics (TIFR))
Rathin Desai (National Center for Radio Astrophysics (TIFR))
Archit Sakhadeo (National Center for Radio Astrophysics (TIFR))
Shadab Shaikh (National Center for Radio Astrophysics (TIFR))
Yogesh Wadadekar (National Center for Radio Astrophysics (TIFR))
C.H. Ishwara Chandra - National Center for Radio Astrophysics (TIFR) Huib Intema - Leiden University


Theme: Data Science: Workflows Hardware Software Humanware
Title: GMRT Archive Processing Project

The GMRT Online Archive houses over 80 terabytes of interferometric observations obtained with the GMRT since the observatory began operating as a facility in 2002. The utility of this vast data archive, likely the largest of any Indian telescope, can be significantly enhanced if first look (and where possible, science ready) processed images can be made available to the user community. We have initiated a project to pipeline process GMRT images in the 150, 240, 325 and 610 MHz bands. The SPAM pipeline is being used for this purpose. A prototyping run has been successfully completed and the results are encouraging. The thousands of processed continuum images that we will produce will prove useful in studies of distant galaxy clusters, radio AGN, as well as nearby galaxies and star-forming regions. Besides the scientific returns, a uniform data processing pipeline run on a large volume of data can be used in interesting ways. For example, we will be able to measure various performance characteristics of the GMRT telescope and their dependence on waveband, time of day, RFI environment, backend, galactic latitude etc. in a systematic way. Since the SPAM pipeline also carries out direction dependent modeling of ionospheric phase errors, we will also be able to measure differential ionospheric phase delays over thousands of sightlines over the entire solar cycle to better understand the properties of the earth's ionosphere. A variety of data products such as calibrated UVFITS data, sky images, Hierarchical Progressive Survey (HiPS) images, PyBDSF catalogs, AIPS processing logs will be delivered to users via the GMRT online archive. Data products will be compatible with standard Virtual Observatory protocols.

Link to PDF (may not be available yet): P4-7.pdf