HAWC+ Data Pipeline Acceptance Completed
Through the collaborative efforts of the High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera-plus (HAWC+) team and SOFIA Data Pipeline Systems team, the HAWC+ data reduction pipeline is now available for use.
HAWC+ is SOFIA’s first polarimetric instrument enabling the study of magnetic fields in a variety of objects, including dark clouds, supernova remnants, young stellar objects, the galactic center, and nearby and gravitationally lensed galaxies.
The instrument offers both total intensity imaging and imaging polarimetry observing options with continuum bandpasses from 50 to 240 micrometers. The pipeline converts raw data from its binary form into Level 3 final calibrated images for total intensity imaging observations and Level 4 calibrated images with overlaid polarization vectors for imaging polarimetry observations.
The HAWC+ data reduction pipeline will enable routine archiving of data within 15 working days from the end of a given flight series. Once past the one-year proprietary period, data products will be publicly accessible on the Data Cycle System Science Archive. As of Aug. 3, 2018, the Data Pipeline Systems team has processed all HAWC+ data from the last year and a half. Cycle 4 data is now publicly available, in addition to the community data set observations of 30 Doradus (see below:
Community Dataset Release: 30 Doradus Polarimetry
). Cycle 5 and 6 data will be available publicly once their proprietary periods expire in June 2019.
The Data Pipeline Systems team published an associated HAWC+ Data Handbook, which describes both the reduction algorithms used and the data produced by the data reduction pipeline. Questions regarding utilization of HAWC+ data may be directed toward the Help-Desk, and SOFIA will offer opportunities for additional support to further assist those who want to work with SOFIA data in general. Stay tuned.
