About

The Australian SKA Pathfinder

The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a 36 dish radio-interferometer operating at 700 to 1800 MHz. Located out in the Murchison Radio Observatory in Western Australia, the planned future site of the Square Kilometre Array low-band telescope. Designed and engineered by CSIRO, the key feature of ASKAP is its wide field of view, generated by its unique phased array feed (PAF) receivers. Together with specialised digital systems, the PAFs create 36 separate (simultaneous) beams on the sky which are mosaicked together into a large single image.

ASKAP commissioning is complete and all 36 antennas are working together. Pilot surveys with ASKAP have begun and data from these surveys will be made available with CASDA. See ASKAP homepage for more information. The full ASKAP surveys are expected to begin in Q4 2020 but we recommend staying tuned to this page for all the latest ASKAP news!

The CSIRO ASKAP Science Data Archive

CSIRO ASKAP Science Data Archive (CASDA) stores science-ready data products produced by the ASKAPsoft pipeline, software custom-built by CASS to process RAW ASKAP data. The data ingested into CASDA is expected to be about 5 PB per year in full operations. Furthermore ASKAP survey teams will produce enhanced data products (e.g. cross-matched catalogues, cubes from multi-day observations, etc.) which will be uploaded into CASDA.

CASDA has been in development since 2013, with the first production release in late 2015. Additional enhancements and functionality have been added to CASDA since that first release. CASDA has implemented Virtual Observatory protocols and services which allow for scripted automatic access.

The main features of CASDA are:
• Long term storage of ASKAP science data products (10 PB already allocated at Pawsey
Supercomputing Centre)
• Access via both web interface (CSIRO Data Access Portal) and Virtual Observatory (VO) services
• Interactive Skymap search via CSIRO Data Access Portal
• Quantitative data quality metrics and validation of data products
• Ability for users to upload value-added science catalogues and image cubes
• Digital Object Identification (DOI) for all datasets, for a persistent data URL identifier that can be
used with publications

CASDA currently supports the following datasets:
• Calibrated visibilities (for continuum data only)
• Image products from the ASKAPsoft pipeline: images, image cubes, catalogues, spectra and
moment maps

The All-Sky Virtual Observatory

The All-Sky Virtual Observatory (ASVO) is enabling researchers to access data across a federated network of datasets, from all types of astronomical facilities in Australia. CASDA is one of several nodes of the ASVO. See the ASVO website for more information.

Acknowledging ASKAP Data and CASDA in Publications

Please visit the ATNF Data Policy page for information on ASKAP data policies and CASS Publications and Acknowledgments page for publication information.

Users of ASKAP are required to acknowledge the Australia Telescope National Facility in any publications resulting from use of ATNF facilities. Please send publications information, for any publications that include data taken with ATNF facilities, but do not include CSIRO authors, directly to Julie Tesoriero (Julie.Tesoriero [@] csiro.au).

Where possible, authors are requested to the term ‘ASKAP’ in the abstract of their papers. This is to facilitate electronic searches for publications.

Publications that use data from ASKAP or the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory should include a statement as follows:

  • The Australian SKA Pathfinder is part of the Australia Telescope National Facility which is managed by CSIRO. Operation of ASKAP is funded by the Australian Government with support from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. ASKAP uses the resources of the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. Establishment of ASKAP, the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory and the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre are initiatives of the Australian Government, with support from the Government of Western Australia and the Science and Industry Endowment Fund. We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji people as the traditional owners of the Observatory site.

Furthermore, papers that use the CASDA archive facility should include:

  • This paper includes archived data obtained through the CSIRO ASKAP Science Data Archive, CASDA (http://data.csiro.au).