Overview of Miriad for the Reduction of SMA data
Overview of MIRIAD for the Reduction of SMA data
Jun-Hui Zhao (SAO)
2005-10-05 (updated 2007-8-6)
1. WHAT IS MIRIAD
MIRIAD is a radio astronomy data reduction package, taking
interferometer array data from telescope to publication
quality images.
MIRIAD was designed for
Multichannel
Image
Reconstruction,
Image
Analysis and
Display
MIRIAD can be run on the command line, and is easily built
into CSH, PYTHON, etc scripts for simple, or for quite
complex data reduction and image analysis procedures.
MIRIAD is free Software, friendly to users, and well tested
for the reduction of interferometer array data at millimeters
and centimeters.
MIRIAD news for updating SMA offline software is being flashed
through smamiriad@cfa.harvard.edu
which is managed by pmailhot through CF.
About a dozen people have subscribed smamiriad.
2. MIRIAD DATA STRUCTURE
The uvdata structure is used for single source, multiple source or
frequency, mosaiced, polarization, interferometer or single dish
observations. The data can be stored as real or complex floating
values, or scaled 16-bit integers. The metadata are stored as a
stream of named variables and values. Source names, frequencies,
pointing centers, are variables which can change throughout the
uvdata.
3. MIRIAD FOR SMA
MIRIAD is now powered for the reduction of continuum and spectral line
data at submillimeter wavelengths from loading of the original SMA data (Caltech's MIR formats)
through to the image analysis:
(Miriad for SMA)
Two formats (html and pdf) of Users Guide are supported for the reduction
of SMA data:
Uguide html (Miriad4SMA)
Uguide pdf (Miriad4SMA)
4. FUTURE TASKS AND WEAKNESS
To implement flux density scale bootstraping tool.
(the exisiting task plboot is only good for lower frequency).
Only few people aware the new SMA tasks and the capability of
the reduction for SMA data in MIRIAD.
Weak support team in terms of manpower.
Public computers at CFA wide poorly updated MIRIAD,
even though the updating and installation only take few minutes.
Need a cron task to daily CVS update MIRIAD for the public
computers at CFA (CF, RG and Hawaii).
5. COMPUTERS AND PLATFORMS
Best on Linux and possible Solaris and Mac OS X
Status on the SAO public computers:
Div. computers&platforms manager latest update
RG rtdc3 (rg linux 64bits) miriad
setup: source /opt/miriad/miriad_cvs/MIRRC.linux
Hawaii /sma/local/miriad (all linux ?) rrao
setup: source /sma/local/miriad/MIRRC.linux
CF jove (all CF linux 32bits) miriad
setup: source /home/miriad/miriad_cvs/MIRRC.linux
Fortunately, Miriad is light (50Mbytes) and easy to install and maintain by individuals.
About half dozen voluntary users installed their own version and have been
helping us
testing and debugging.
6. MIRIAD for Future Telescopes
For CARMA
Carma Memo #25
Carma Memo #27
For ATA
Allen Telescope Array Imaging
Imaging With a 32-Antenna Allen Telescope Array
For ALMA
ALMA memo #430
ALMA memo #450
For SKA
SKA memo #46