This tutorial will show you how to use the Advanced Search capability of the MAST Portal. Specifically, we will be using Advanced Search to pre-select targets in the TESS Candidate Target List (CTL) that have temperatures between 2000-3500 K and non-zero priorities. After pre-selecting using these filters, you can either download the results, or conduct a search within that subset of the CTL.

Upon visiting the MAST Portal, the first step is to change the collection of data we are searching in from the Context menu (Item #1) at the top left.

From the Context drop-down menu, select MAST Catalogs, then, in the Mission drop-down menu that appears (Item #1), select either TESS Input for the TIC, or TESS CTL for the candidate target list. In this example, we'll select TESS CTL.

After selecting the CTL in the Context menu, enter the Advanced Search using the link below the search box. Note: you only need to visit the link, at this point, do not enter anything into the Search Box.

In the Advanced Search screen, you can add or remove sub-panels that can be used to apply a pre-search filter on any of the available columns (Item #1). When you add a sub-panel, it will show up on the right side of the menu, where you can apply limits on the ranges for numerical columns, or constraints in text fields by entering a value, including wildcards (Item #2).

In our example, we'll remove all the sub-panels except for T_eff, Luminosity Class From RPM, and Priority. It's not necessary to remove sub-panels if you don't want to filter on them, but we do here for clarity. We filter 2000. < T_eff < 3500. K, ensure only those with a "DWARF" Luminosity Class From RPM are selected, and change the minimum Priority = 0.03 (Item #1). As you apply each filter, the Portal will apply it and keep a running total of the number of return rows in the top-left (Item #2).

Once your filters result in < 500,000 rows, the option to download the results will become active (Item #1). You can then specify an output file name and format to save those rows.

Let's modify our filters a little bit, by changing the minimum Priority = 0.1 (Item #1). If you have < 50,000 rows after applying your filters, the option to load those rows into the Portal's main interface becomes available (Item #2). Once loaded, you will be able to further interact with these rows using the features of the Portal (cross-matching, AstroViewer, plotting, etc.)

Having loaded our Advanced Search results into the main Portal, we see they are stored in their own tab (Item #1). Indeed, if we turn on grid lines in the AstroViewer options (gear icon in the lower right of the AstroViewer) and pan down towards the southern pole, we can see a large concentration in the Southern Continuous Viewing Zone, as one might expect given the overall importance of targets in this part of the sky (Item #2).