; VLBAPIPE - Lorant Sjouwerman, NRAO - Nov 25 02 ; Ver 1.0 : released to public in July 2002 ; Ver 2.1 : released in MNJ in November 2002 ;--------------------------------------------------------------- ;! applies amplitude and phase calibration procs to VLBA data ;# RUN POPS VLBI UTILITY CALIBRATION ;--------------------------------------------------------------- ;; Copyright (C) 2001-2002 ;; Associated Universities, Inc. Washington DC, USA. ;; ;; This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or ;; modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as ;; published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of ;; the License, or (at your option) any later version. ;; ;; This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, ;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of ;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the ;; GNU General Public License for more details. ;; ;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public ;; License along with this program; if not, write to the Free ;; Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, ;; MA 02139, USA. ;; ;; Correspondence concerning AIPS should be addressed as follows: ;; Internet email: aipsmail@nrao.edu. ;; Postal address: AIPS Project Office ;; National Radio Astronomy Observatory ;; 520 Edgemont Road ;; Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA ;--------------------------------------------------------------- VLBAPIPE LLLLLLLLLLLLUUUUUUUUUUUU CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC VLBAPIPE: Applies amplitude and phase calibration to VLBA data ! ***************************** This is 'the' input dialog to the VLBA pipeline.. There are NO DEFAULTS! Note the special use of almost all variables ! + Clean up BEFORE you start + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Specify either REFANT or SORT and full TIMERANG or scan#,0. The only further dialog is in loading the distribution tape (1,2,.) by typing 0 & return. After all tapes are loaded it does not need any more inputs provided that values do exist and are legitimate after load checks (will break otherwise) - WHEN IT GOES, IT GOES !!! - Check the plots and if it did a good job, then back it up ! ***************************** DOALL Tape unit #, < 1 to skip load and -1, -2, etc, for restart with frequency-ID 1, 2, etc, ie. outclass FQ-1, FQ-2, etc if FPOL1, etc does not exist or UVDATA if only one freqID =0 will do mcal,subs,fqs too ie. for freshly loaded file. If < -1000 only do -1000-ID. NCOUNT Number of distribution tapes, APARM Number of files on each tape; both ignored for: DOALL < 1. ----------------------------- OUTNAME VLBA program name (eg BZ099A) First 6=outclass cal'd data! INNAME Multiple passs - non-blank to copy CL-,BP-,+FG-tables from this file present to OUTNAME INNAME NOT AVAILABLE YET OUTDISK Working disk with ample space ----------------------------- OUTPRINT File with the VLA calibration Leave empty if VLA not used! VLA CAL NOT AVAILABLE YET FLUX Multiples of 0.131072 seconds (8 is 1s) used in correlator visibility integration time (to calculate noise levels). FLUX NOT AVAILABLE YET SUBARRAY Number of subarrays: only > 0 SUBARRAY NOT AVAILABLE YET OPTYPE 'CONT', 'SPEC', or 'PSEU' for pseudo continuum (continnum, but no frequency averaging). DOPOL Do a polarization calibration Value = pol-cal # in calsour (eg. DOPOL=3: 3rd calsour is calibrator used for pol-cal) DOPOL NOT AVAILABLE YET ----------------------------- CLINT CL table interval in minutes. REFANT Reference antenna #, or use 0 SORT and eg. SORT 'PT' if unknown ----------------------------- INFILE 1st IONEX file name for TECOR NFILES Number of days spanning obser vations-ftp those IONEX too! NFILES < 1: don't run TECOR. ----------------------------- TIMERANG A good band-pass scan, or use scan# in TIMERANG(1)+rest=0. All antennas must be present in this range. For spectral- line this is used for manual pcal, for rest uses PC table CALSOUR List ALL FriFit & CAL sources FIRST is bandpass calibrator in TIMERANG specified above. Include at least all Ph-Refs Negative: DO selfcal attempt (breaks often, so be warned) If CALSOUR(2)='*', then will take every source in SUtable but do define CALSOUR(1)=BP, and perhaps CALSOUR(3)=POLZN NO Self-cal allowed for '*'! SOURCES Source * PAIRS * to calibrate Maximum of 15 Ph-Ref. pairs! START each pair with Ph-Ref. DO NOT repeat non-PRef srcs. 2nd='*': all non-calibrators are phase-referenced to 1st. ----------------------------- SOLINT Time interval for fringe-fit, in minutes! 0 => 10 minutes. -1 => use BPARM for multi-fq If > Scan/2 => SOLINT = Scan Also used in SCMAP: 0=no avg BPARM SOLINT per frequency-ID - you need to know observing order (max 10) and set SOLINT = -1 INTERPOL Interpolation: '2pt', 'simp', 'ambg', or 'cube' for phase- referenced (even) sources in last CLCAL. A 'self' is done for all calsour, so put your source there if it is strong and for big maps use FACTOR. ----------------------------- IMSIZE Image size for 'even' sources (Phase-referenced, min 512); others are FACTORx128 square FACTOR (power of two, actually sets a fldsize for both strings). Pixels scale with frequency: 2.25e6/Frequency(Hz) arcsec ----------------------------- DOTV Show plots: TV>0, PL=0, PS<0. Recommend =0, discourage =-1 BADDISK Disks to avoid for scratch VLBAPIPE is defined solely in LORANTs run file area. ---------------------------------------------------------------- VLBAPIPE Type: Procedure Use: VLBAPIPE is the procedure that applies the VLBA calibration procedures for a-priori amplitude and phase corrections, and also performs fringe fitting on single strong sources and phase-references weak sources. Simple visibility flagging, bandpass calibration, and total electron content corrections are applied before fringe fitting and averaging. It may attempt to self-cal the calibrators and will image the targets. NOTE: this procedure is designed to work on simple VLBA-only experiments! Type RUN VLBAUTIL and RUN VLBAPIPE to define the VLBAPIPE procedure; it is wise to type RESTORE 0 first to set /all/ default task values! The procedure itself is run by typing : INP VLBAPIPE; (GO) VLBAPIPE ====================================================================== READ THE EXPLAIN FILE THOROUGHLY BEFORE USING (BECAUSE OF CONVENTIONS) ====================================================================== ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- * MEANS NOT FULLY TESTED OR NOT COMPLETELY SECURE ON INPUTS x MEANS NOT AVAILABLE YET DOALL......Tape unit drive number to use for loading tapes and backing up the data; also used for restarts but be aware of introducing artifacts or breaks when the starting point is chosen wrong: with restarts you're on your own! (Main breaks occur when the structure is different -eg. other sources- per frequency id). * If < 1000, then only do Freq-ID = (-1*DOALL)-1000; ie. -1004->4 NCOUNT.....Number of distribution tapes, assuming that no other files are on the tape, ie. NFILES=0 (to advance) in FITLD for all tapes. APARM......Number of files on each tape, NCOUNT in FITLD, in order of appearance; make sure the rest of APARM is set to zero. OUTNAME....VLBA program name (eg. BZ099A) or any other unique name to use. The first 6 characters are used to name the outclass SPLIT data OUTDISK....Working disk; need ample space to store ALL processed files. x OUTPRINT...If VLA (or any other 'non-cal-transfer' station) is used then the Tsys and gain curve information is loaded by specifying the ANTAB-file in outprint (CHECK/EDIT THIS FILE!); blank=VLBA-only. x FLUX.......Parameter used to calculate noise in baselines and maps and thus to regulate the flagging and imaging in the pipeline. Should be given in multiples of 0.131072 seconds, which is the value used in the correlator for the integration time of the individual visibilities. DTSUM (with APARM=0!) will give you this number if you cannot find it elsewhere (e.g. cover sheet or schedule file). x SUBARRAY...List number of subarrays; will loop over subarrays and freqids OPTYPE.....Type of observation: 'CONT' for continuum using pulse-cal tones and averaging frequency in the output; 'SPEC' for spectral line using 'manual pulse-cal' on a strong source in a time range and without averaging in frequency; and 'PSEU' for pseudo-continuum using pulse-cal tones (if available) but no frequency averaging. x DOPOL......Do a polarization calibration NOT AVIALABLE YET! -> # is CALS # CLINT......CL table interval in minutes throughout the calibration. REFANT.....Reference antenna #, or use REFANT=0 and SORT below if unknown. SORT.......Reference antenna NAME (2 characters) to use eg. 'PT'; REFANT=0 INFILE.....First IONEX file name for TECOR; it assumes a fixed format! No need to specify if TECOR is skipped with NFILES < 1. However it is recommended to run TECOR for ALL frequencies up to 15 GHz. The IONEX files can be downloaded through an anonymous ftp to cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov and following the directory structure: /gps/products/ionex// (take doy from *.sum). NFILES.....Number of days spanning observations for which the consecutive IONEX files have been downloaded, with the same assumed format with only the daynumber incremented (see explainfile TECOR). TIMERANG...Full 8 value time range for a good BP-calibrator scan for PCAL, or use the scan number in TIMERANG(1) and set the rest to zero. All antennas should have produced good data in this scan/time. CALSOUR....List of ALL calibrator sources and sources meant to fringe-fit. Start (cal)source name with a minus if you want it to attempt a self-cal afterwards for strong sources - otherwise will break! NOTE: The first source WILL be used for p-cal+bandpass calibration. * Specify CALSOUR(2)='*' if you want all sources in the data set * to be fringe fitted. Self-cal is not allowed in this mode and * do not forget to specify your bandpass calibrator in CALSOUR(1) x and possibly a polarization calibrator in CALSOUR(3) (DOPOL=3) SOURCES....Source *PAIRS* to calibrate in a phase-reference scheme. It is assumed that the odd source numbers are the phase-references, the even sources are the target sources, each of them to be phase-referenced to the source directly in front of it. That is > SOURCES='PREF_1','TARG_1','PREF_2','TARG_2','PREF_1','TARG_3' will reference target sources 'TARG_1' and 'TARG_3' to phase- reference source 'PREF_1', and target source 'TARG_2' will be phase-referenced to source 'PREF_2', assuming that all sources used as reference appeared in CALSOUR above (with ample proper phase solutions). Sources solely used for amplitude or bandpass calibration need not (shouldn't!) be repeated in SOURCES under assumption that they appeared in CALSOUR where they should be.. If many sources need to be referenced to only one phase-reference then use SOURCES = 'PREF_1', '*' to get ALL the NON-calibrators phase-referenced to the first source in SOURCES. * SOLINT.....Solution interval in minutes for FRING; general defaults for 0; NOTE: also used in self-cal, where 0 means no data averaging (!) and this is usually not a good idea. If any of your CALSOUR has been defined negative (for self-cal) then set SOLINT > 0 (&<10?) * BPARM......Used for multiple values of SOLINT, in case multiple frequencies differ a lot in value (e.g. 8, 15, 22, and 43 GHz). Order should be the frequency-ID order, which is the same as observing order. If in doubt, FITLD (VLBALOAD), and INDXR (VLBAFIX) will tell. * INTERPOL...Interpolation used for phase-reference sources in CLCAL: 'SIMP' usually works fine, but options include '2PT', 'AMBG and 'CUBE'. IMSIZE.....Image size of target phase-reference source (ie. even SOURCEs), in powers of two (minimum 512, maximum 8192); usually 512 is good enough, but if your phase-reference target position is not known to 500/FREQ(GHz) mas, use larger values (at cost of speed). FACTOR.....By default, the CALSOUR sources are imaged at 128 pixels as their position is known. However if your target sources are strong and put in CALSOUR (ie. no phase-referencing target), you may want to increase the image size by FACTOR*128 (minimum 1, maximum 64). DOTV.......Shows plots interactively when they appear on TV when positive, keeps as PLot files attatched to input file when zero and pipes the unseen(!) PostScript plots to the printer when negative. Recommended use: DOTV=0, and view afterwards with 'p_allplot'. BADDISK....Disks to avoid for scratch ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- * MEANS NOT FULLY TESTED OR NOT COMPLETELY SECURE ON INPUTS x MEANS NOT AVAILABLE YET ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- VLBAPIPE: Procedure that attempts to calibrate VLBA data blindly. Documentor: Lorant Sjouwerman, lsjouwer@nrao.edu. Related Programs: All VLBAUTIL procs, TECOR, BPASS, UVMLN, SPLIT, IMAGR,.. CLIPM, POSSM, VPLOT and many more VLBAPIPE applies VLBAUTIL procedures to simple VLBA-only experiments, with simple flagging and Total Electron Content correction before bandpass calbr. Sources are split after calibration, and strong and phase-reference sources are self-called and target sources are imaged as a fist order quality check. ====================================================================== READ THE EXPLAIN FILE THOROUGHLY BEFORE USING (BECAUSE OF CONVENTIONS) ====================================================================== HIGHLY UNSTABLE PROCEDURE because it is UNDER CONTINOUOS DEVELOPMENT! (LOS). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------