; BDF2AIPS ;--------------------------------------------------------------- ;! script access to obit task BDFIn to translate EVLA data to AIPS ;# INFORMATION UV VLA ;----------------------------------------------------------------------- ;; Copyright (C) 2010 ;; Associated Universities, Inc. Washington DC, USA. ;; ;; This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or ;; modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as ;; published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of ;; the License, or (at your option) any later version. ;; ;; This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, ;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of ;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the ;; GNU General Public License for more details. ;; ;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public ;; License along with this program; if not, write to the Free ;; Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, ;; MA 02139, USA. ;; ;; Correspondence concerning AIPS should be addressed as follows: ;; Internet email: aipsmail@nrao.edu. ;; Postal address: AIPS Project Office ;; National Radio Astronomy Observatory ;; 520 Edgemont Road ;; Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA ;----------------------------------------------------------------------- BDF2AIPS LLLLLLLLLLLLUUUUUUUUUUUU CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC BDF2AIPS: Stand-alone script to translate EVLA ASDM into AIPS ---------------------------------------------------------------- BDF2AIPS Type: Stand-alone service program Use: BDF2AIPS is a script that will read an EVLA ASDM/BDF format data area and convert it to an AIPS disk file residing on one of the AIPS data areas of your current computer. It does this by invoking a task in the obit software package written by Bill Cotton. That package must be available on your system and the script ObitTalk must be in your path. If you do not have obit, it may be obtained from www.nrao.edu and should install fairly easily. You should use BDFLIST first to list the contents of your ASDM/BDF format data. It will provide information on "configuration number" which is essential in defining which data you wish to load. BDF2AIPS is a script that is run at the command line (i.e., outside of AIPS). It will ask you a few essential questions. They are: 1. "BDF dir-path :" Give the full path name to the directory containing the ASDM and BDF data. These data may be obtained from the NRAO archive. 2. "AIPS usrnumb :" Give the AIPS user number you wish to use for these data. 3. "AIPS outname :" Give the OUTNAME to be attached to the data file. 4. "AIPS outdisk :" Give the disk number on which to write these data. OUTCLASS='UVEVLA'; OUTSEQ=0 will be used. 5. "Only SpWs with this number of channels are selected, others ignored." "Default/blank is the #chans in 1st SpW. #chans select : " Enter 0 or just hit return and the number of spectral channels in the selected data will be those of the first data matching the other keywords. This prompt will be needed when the number of channels is allowed to vary between spectral windows within a single "configuration". 6. "ASDM array configuration to select : " Enter the "configuration number" >= 0 of the desired configuration (ASDMs often contain multiple sets of spectral windows of different size, frequency, etc.). Use BDFLIST to list the contents of your data to tell you which configuration number to select. 7. "Only scans with this number of SpWs is selected, others ignored" "Default/blank is the #SpWs in 1st scan. #SpWs select : " This question is asked only if you answer question 6 with a simple carriage return. Enter the number of spectral windows (IFs in AIPSpeak) of the data configuration you want to load. 0 or carriage return => any matching the other keywords. 8. "Default band is the one in 1st PpW." "Recognized: 4,P,L,S,C,X,Ku,K,Ka,Q,W,blank" "Band select : " This question is asked only if you answer question 6 with a simple carriage return. Enter the letter code for the desired band. Note that bands overlap in the EVLA and the ASDM does not identify which receiver was used so there is some ambiguity. BDF2AIPS will make the output file including a number of standard AIPS extension files. The CL table will have an interval of 15 sec and the data are not compressed. The latter decision is made to avoid loss of dynamic range which could arise if there is significant RFI or a very strong spectral line. Sources with identical names and coordinates but different CALCODEs will be treated as different. This helps with calibration, but may cause difficulties when it comes time to run SPLIT. BDF2AIPS is a simple script and you may make a copy of it and modify any of the parameters in your private copy to suit yourself. You may select output FITS format files instead (DataType) or change OUTCLASS (outClass), CL interval (calInt), compression (Compress), or source naming with CALCODEs (doCode). If you select FITS output you must set x.outFile to the desired output path name. BDF2AIPS will write a log file and a run file in your /tmp area with the time included in the name. This file is echoed to the screen as BDF2AIPS finishes and will remain in /tmp until it is automatically deleted by the operating system.