Navigating the MAST Web Site

As part of the top banner of most MAST web pages are two navigation bars. The top bar (blue) contains links or lists of links in a pull down menu to pages that you may need to access from any page on the MAST web site. The second navigation bar (light aqua) contains items pertinent to the section of the website currently displayed. This is typically within a mission or project archived at MAST. Similar information is included (when available) for all missions.

Top Navigation Bar

• MAST - This link will bring you back to the MAST Home page. Clicking on the MAST logo in the top left of the page will also bring you back to the MAST Home page.
• STScI - This link will take you to the main Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) web page.
• Tools - There is a pulldown menu that contains links to various non-mission specific tools and searches. If you click on the link or on the more that is part of the pulldown a page displaying all MAST Searches and tools is displayed.
• Mission Searches - There is a pulldown menu that contains links to each of the main mission search forms. Clicking on the more at the bottom of the pulldown or on the link itself will display a page of searches, including specialized mission related searches such as the "HST Pointings" interface.
• Tutorial - The tutorial provides more detailed information about the MAST website, methods for locating data, retrieving data, and for finding documentation and appropriate analysis software.
• Site Search - Clicking on this will take you to a page where you can perform a Google search of the MAST web site. There is also an option to search the entire WWW.

Second Navigation Bar

• About MAST - This page contains a brief introduction to MAST.
• Getting Started - The MAST Getting Started page provides a quick overview on how to find and retrieve data from MAST.
• Suggestion Box - We welcome suggestions and comments from our users. This form is a means for you to make a comment or suggestion concerning MAST services, tools and interfaces. While you may post any comments anonymously, often it would be extremely useful to ask you for further clarification or feedback on implementation in response to a suggestion so providing your email address is an option. We anticipate that the response to some suggestions or comments would be of interest to the wider archive user community. We also understand that you may ask how to do certain types of searches that would divulge a science goal for a proposal. So we ask you to tell us if we can post your comment and our response on the web. All postings on such a website will be anonymous even if you have identified yourself.

The "Mission Navigation Bar" contains links to parts of the MAST website that might be useful at all times. The type of pages linked from this navigation bar are similar but not identical for all missions. Below are descriptions of the type of information that can be accessed from the top navigation bar:

• "Mission" Home - link takes you to the Mission home page. "Mission" is replaced by the actual mission name.
• "About" ASTRO/ORFEUS - for the instruments aboard the shuttle based observatories ASTRO and ORFEUS, there is a brief information page about the observatory.
• About "mission" - link takes you to a web page with information about the mission, including information about the instrumentation and operation when available.
• Getting Started - link to specific information to help you get started using the mission data.
• Registration - a link to the DADS registration page. (Only necessary to retrieve proprietary HST and FUSE data.
• Archive Status - a link to a page giving the status of DADS archive retrievals.
• "Mission" Search Form - link takes you to the mission search form.

Footer

At the bottom of each MAST web page is a footer. The footer contains the following links.

• Top of Page - brings user back to the top of the current page.

• Copyright - link to the copyright policy.

• Email Us - link brings up email window to contact the MAST Helpdesk.

• Printer Friendly page - brings up a page with all banners, navigation bars and menus removed so that the page content may be printed more neatly and coherently.

• Contacts - Page with address and phone number for the MAST Helpdesk and a link to a list of MAST staff

• Last Modified - Date the current page was last modified.

Left Menus

All menu items are links to pages, even those with pullout menus associated with them. If the main linked page is more than a listing of the links in the pullout menu it is duplicated in the pullout.

Left Menu for the MAST page and pages not associated with a specific mission

• FAQ - Link to a general "FAQ" or Frequently Asked Questions page.

• High-Level Science Products - a link to the HLSP project search page. The pullout menu contains links to the HLSP project search page, which provides an interface to search for HLSP by wavelength, product, and object type. Links to other associated with HLSP are in the pullout menu, including links to a search interface that permits one to look for HLSP by target, a link to the guidelines for HLSP contributions, and a page describing options for downloading HLSP from MAST.

• Software - software packages relevant to MAST data.

• FITS - information concerning the Flexible Image Transport System (FITS).

• Related Sites - a list of related web sites.

• NASA Datacenters - links to other NASA Datacenters

• MAST and the VO - a page that describes MAST activities related to the Virtual Observatory. The associated pullout includes links to a description of MAST web services and other VO related applications.

• Data Use Policy - a page with a general policy regarding the use of data archived at MAST.

• Acknowledgements - a page acknowledging input and help from various projects and institutions who have contributed data, previews and other material used by in MAST.

Left Menu for the Mission pages

• Target Search - Where appropriate a quick target search of the mission data is included in the left navigation menu. Type in a SIMBAD resolvable target name or the coordinates and push the enter button. The header is a link to a help page. Use the more advanced search reached from the "mission" navigation bar for more specialized searches.

• Abstract Search - Enter a word or phrase and push the enter button to search proposal abstracts for that phrase. The title is a link to the help page for the search. A form permitting more advanced searches of the abstract database is at the top of the help page and is also available under the Search & Retrieval links in the menu. This option is only available for the HST, FUSE, IUE and EUVE missions.

• FAQ - Mission-specific "FAQ" or Frequently Asked Questions page.

• Search & Retrieval - the main mission search pages and the associated help pages. Some missions include links to other search pages (e.g. FUSE to the exposure search page, Copernicus to the coadded scan data and HST to the "HST Pointings" search page). Some missions also include links to specialized retrieval pages.

• About "mission" data - pullout menu to links concerning obtaining and reading the mission data and to a page describing the data products.

• Atlases and Catalogs - Some missions have atlases or catalogs which are linked from this menu item.

• Documentation - links to project produced documentation such as handbooks, observing guides and newsletters. Some will be duplicated in other pages or pullouts. For example, documentation about instrumentation may also be linked from the "About mission" page which is located on the "mission" navigation bar.

• Publications - Journal articles related to the mission or using mission data.

• Gallery - gallery of pictures, sometimes of the mission data, sometimes to events related to building and launch of the instrument/telescope.

• Data Use Policy - a statement of the policy regarding use of this particular dataset.

• Acknowledgements - a link to a page acknowledging input and help from the project and individuals who contributed data, previews and other material used by MAST.

• Special mission links - Some missions may have links to items that could not be generalized or are not available for every mission.

The right navigation menu appears only on the "top" MAST page and the "top" mission pages. The right navigation menu contains two parts: