Automated curation of infra-red imaging data in the WFCAM and VISTA Science Archives

摘要

The two fastest near infrared survey telescopes are UKIRT-WFCAM and VISTA.The data from both these instruments are being archived by Wide Field AstronomyUnit (WFAU) at the IfA, Edinburgh, using the same curation pipeline, with someinstrument specific processing. The final catalogues from these surveys willcontain many tens of billions of detections. Data are taken for a range of large surveys and smaller PI programmes. Thesurveys vary from shallow hemisphere surveys to ultra deep single pointingswith hundreds of individual epochs, each with a wide range of scientific goals,leading to a wide range of products and database tables being created.Processing of the main surveys must allow for the inclusion of specifichigh-level requirements from the survey teams, but automation reduces theamount of work by archive operators allowing a higher curation efficiency. Thedecision making processes which drive the curation pipeline are a crucialelement for efficient archiving. This paper describes the main issues involvedin automating the pipeline.