A Week in the Life of a I-LOFAR Cheif Observer

This is a more simplified version of some of the pages David made. It details the pipeline used to turn voltages to filter-banks, clean and search them before archival on DIAS or Archie. 

Disk Space 

There is a lack of disk space locally in Birr. By default the observing is stored in /mnt/ucc1_recording2/data/observations/. This  is one of the reasons that UCC1 shouldn't be used during observations. Keep an eye on the data rates throughout observation, if there is no space then there is no observations. This can be done through the terminal using df -h . Also there is a script setup to email the observing mailing list when the space on the disk drops below 20%.

The data rates for the observations are as follows, this is a good way to see if you have enough space left for the remaining observation time. 

 

Observation	Data Rate (GB/hr)
BF-ed HBT	~550
KBT (Sun)	~700

This means that for a given full day of observation, about 14 TB is needed, KBT dependent.

NOTE: It is important that the disks remain free, if the disk looks like it will fill before the observations end, please email the CO list. 

Processing 

Each week the collected data needs to be processed. This can be started during obs as it takes place on the other UCC nodes. This step should be started at the latest right after observations end. (usually 3pm on Wednesdays).

Filter-banking & Folding 

First things first is to do some folding