Obtaining UIT data

The UIT Archive is maintained at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) as part of MAST, the Multi-mission Archive at STScI. The data are stored online on spinning disk. Data may be obtained in any of 3 ways: searching the UIT database, browsing the UIT catalog, or anonymous ftp.

Normally web users will search the UIT database for particular files using the UIT search page. The returned table of found entries allows the user to mark the images to be downloaded. A request for data begins a retrieval job. Once the requested files are located, they are written to a data distribution disk area on the system, bundled into a tar, zipped format file, and downloaded to the disk area specified by the user in the "save as..." pop-up window. The files have finished downloading when the pop-up window disappears. Due to the size of the files, the wait time may be longer than for some other MAST data and is proportional to the number of datasets requested.

Alternatively, one may proceed to the UIT catalog, Pick an object category and click on object names or datasets. Clicking on the object name brings up a preview window depicting the image. Clicking on datasets initiates a pop-up window and the data can be downloaded to the desired area in your computer. The same caveat for wait time pertains to this retrieval method.

Primary access is via the web although FTP access is also possible using either a web browser (i.e. ftp://archive.stsci.edu/pub/astro/uit/data/), or, as explained below, using anonymous ftp from an ordinary terminal with network access. As no file conversions are currently available via ftp, returned files are sent individually, in gzipped compressed mode. The observations are grouped by object type and then additionally by target, to help users find data of interest via ftp.

As an example, a typical interactive ftp session to retrieve files for M100 would be: