NRAO End to End Operations

Mission

NRAO End to End Operations provides centralized coordination and management of software development and user support activities across the Observatory. Our mission is to continually broaden access to NRAO facilities by promoting common systems and ease of use to the scientific user community.

Team

NRAO End to End Operations relies on the work and contributions of dozens of scientists and software engineers throughout the Observatory. Key contributors include Lorant Sjouwerman (lead for NVAS, and archive subsystem scientist for VLA and VLBA), Tony Remijan (archive subsystem scientist for GBT/12m/140ft), John Benson (archive lead), Michael Rupen (VLA/EVLA science), Dana Balser (GBT science), Doug Tody (long term VO issues), Jared Crossley (archive and pipeline support), Eric Sessoms (free text search for the archive), Michael Remijan (spectra browser), the entire CASA development team, and the guys at Open Sky Software. Ed Fomalont provides high-level science oversight.

Work In Progress

• Proposal Submission Tool (PST) Upgrade
  • NRAO is currently working on a substantial upgrade to its proposal submission tool, in response to many of the comments we received from users after the February and June deadlines. Coming September 2007.

• CASA Beta Release
  • Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) is the library of tools and tasks being developed primarily to support the ALMA pipeline and offline data reduction, but also fundamental EVLA modes. This release will demonstrate most of the expected functionality in a basic interferometry data reduction package, applying a Python-based command line interface, to give future users of ALMA and EVLA a look at how they can interact with their data. Coming September/October 2007.

• Archive v2.0
  • NRAO has been soliciting information about how to improve our archive contents and archive interface, and have been developing prototypes since late 2006. We are now bringing together all of these designs in preparation for a release to the user community. Coming Fall 2007.
  • Flash Demo of Google-like Search (using real GBT data)
  • Prototype Quick Image Search
  • Prototype Spectra Browser

• http://my.nrao.edu
  • NRAO is working on a centralized dashboard where you can easily gain access to all of your "stuff", whether it's proposals, PI data in the archive, or information about the scheduling for your next observation. Coming Fall 2007

Services & Events

• Archive Tools
  • Retrieve my PI Data (VLA/VLBA)
  • Search the NRAO Archive

• The NRAO VLA Archive Survey (NVAS) Images Pilot
  • This project is derived from work started by Lorant Sjouwerman in 2006.
  • Since Fall 2006, we have been refining the VLA pipeline using raw data from the archive. The result is now over 42,000 images of 8000+ sky positions.
  • An image of all the sky positions for which zeroth order pipeline processed data is now available is below.
  • Do a Quick Image Search now.

• Algorithm R & D
  • We are planning to host an Algorithm Research & Development Workshop in mid-November 2007 . Stay tuned for details. The event will be open to any NRAO professional staff member working on algorithm development, with limited openings available for attendees from other institutions.