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Frequently Asked Questions
(last update: November 4, 2013)

Data

Documentation

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User Support




Data

  • What type of data are supported by MAST?
    The Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes supports:
    • The Hubble Data Archive (HDA), which contains spectroscopic (1,100 - 11,000 Angstroms range; slitless spectroscopy up to 2.5 microns with NIC3) and imaging (1,150 - 25,000 Angstroms) data taken with Hubble Space Telescope. As of August 1998, the HDA contains over 5.2 Tbytes of science and engineering data, for a total of approximately 150,000 science exposures.
    • The Kepler Archive contains roughly 4 years of long (30 min) and short (1 min) cadence light curves for over 200,000 targets, with the goal of finding habitable earth-like planets.
    • Swift-UVOT contains intensified CCD images between 1150 - 6000 Angstroms in 17 sq. arcmin field of view with 0.5"/pixel resolution.
    • XMM-OM microchannel plate/CCD images between 1700 - 5500 Angstroms with a 24 arcmin field of view and 1"/pixel resolution.
    • The Far Ultraviolet Exporer (FUSE) covers the 905-1187 Angstrom spectral region. This active mission contains high resolution spectra of hot and cool stars, AGNs, supernova remnants, planetary nebulae, solar system objects and the interstellar medium.
    • The International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) Final Archive, which contains over 104,000 spectra of approximately 10,000 individual astronomical sources (covering the 1,200 - 3,350 Angstrom range).
    • The Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) Archive, which at present contains spectroscopic observations (in the 70 - 760 Angstrom range) of about 300 sources, mostly Galactic.
    • The Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT) Archive, which contains 106 spectrophotometric observations of 77 targets were obtained in the far-UV (i.e., 912-1850 Angstrom) at a resolution of ~3 A. These were obtained during the first ASTRO mission. An additional 385 observations of 265 targets were obtained during the ASTRO-2 missions.
    • The Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT) Archive, which contains 1,579 images of 259 targets (covering the 1,200 - 3,300 range) obtained by UIT as part of the ASTRO-1 and ASTRO-2 missions.
    • The Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photopolarimeter Experiment (WUPPE) Archive, which contains 467 observations of 169 objects. WUPPE obtained simultaneous spectral and polarization measurements from 1400 to 3300 A during the ASTRO-1 and ASTRO-2 missions.
    • The Copernicus Archive, which includes far- (900 - 1,560 Angstroms) and near- (1,650 - 3,150 Angstroms) ultraviolet spectra of 551 objects, primarily bright stars.
    • The Berkeley Extreme and Far-UV Spectrometer (BEFS), flew on the Orbiting and Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph (ORFEUS)-SPAS I and II space shuttle missions in 1993 and 1996, returning high-resolution (/3000) FUV spectra (900-1200 ) of 75 astrophysical objects from the first flight and more than 100 from the second. EUV spectra (400-900) were obtained for a subset of these targets.
    • The The Interstellar Medium Absorption Profile Spectrograph (IMAPS) obtained high resolution (R=75,000 for IMAPS-1) objective-grating echelle spectra of hot stars, over the spectral region 950-1150. The IMAPS archive currently contains roughly 600 spectral images of 10 hot stars from the first shuttle flight. Once the proprietary period ends for the second IMAPS mission, the archive will include an additional 3,900 spectral images of 29 stars.
    • The Tubingen Ultraviolet Echelle Spectrometer (TUES) flew on the Orbiting and Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph (ORFEUS)-SPAS II space shuttle mission in 1996, returning spectra in the 900 to 1400 Angstrom wavelength range. The instrument was designed to achieve a spectral resolution of $\lambda$/$\Delta$$\lambda$=10000 when used with an entrance aperture of 10" diameter. During the 17.7 day flight, TUES returned 239 spectra of 62 targets.
    • 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. Archive users can easily retrieve image data for any part of the sky.
    • The The Guide Star Catalog I (GSC I) is an all-sky optical catalog of positions and magnitudes of approximately 19 million stars and other objects in the 6th to 15th magnitude range. The GSC II is an all-sky catalog of approximately 2 billion stars and galaxies containing positions, magnitudes, colors and proper motions complete to a minimum of V =18.
    • 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. MAST provides access to the radio images and the source catalog, which currently includes about 437,000 entries.


  • How do I search MAST?
    Every single archive can be searched using its search page. Links to the Web pages of the various archives included in MAST are available from the MAST main page. Moreover, for users wanting to search more than one archive at the same time, two interfaces are provided:
    • From the MAST main page one can conduct a quick search by typing the name of a target to see if any of the MAST supported archives have observations of this target.
    • The MAST Cross Correlation page provides a facility to allow the user to cross-correlate lists of positions with data in our archives. You can compile lists externally or use one of our online catalogs.


  • How can I retrieve MAST data?
    All MAST data can be retrieved from the appropriate Web pages. HST, FIRST, and DSS data can also be retrieved using StarView.


Documentation


More FAQ


User Support

  • What level of support is provided for the various missions?
    Assistance is available for users of the various data included in MAST, although at different levels. Namely:
    • Full support for HST data analysis.
    • Full support for IUE data analysis (except for enhancement of post-pipeline data products).
    • Moderate support for EUVE data analysis.
    • Limited support for DSS, Copernicus, UIT, HUT, and WUPPE data analysis.
    Questions about HST data analysis should be sent to help@stsci.edu. Questions about IUE, EUVE, Copernicus, and UIT data analysis should be sent to archive@stsci.edu.



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