ESO Archive Frequently Asked Questions
List of FAQs
A list of FAQs on data reduction is also available.
The search will be performed in the questions and answers.
Query Forms
- Hints on how to improve your search strategy
- How do I export search results?
- How does SIMBAD resolve the target name?
- How is the DIMM seeing measured? Do you store the FWHM measured on the image itself?
- Ranges can be given as value1..value2, does this apply only to numbers? What about dates?
- What is a DP ID and what is Orig Filename?
- What is the coding scheme for ESO Programme IDs?
- What is the meaning of the check-box located left of most query fields?
- What is the relation between instrument IDs and prefixes of archival dataset identifiers for raw data?
- When I use the wild-card on some queries (e.g. Filter: R*), the results take much longer to show up. Why?
- When browsing raw data should I use the main ESO Archive interface or the instrument specific ones?
Getting Data
- General
- Are all data from ESO Archive available worldwide?
- How can I display the 9 Gb fits files of the stacked UltraVISTA images?
- How can I monitor the progress of my request?
- Will I be notified once my data become available in the Archive ?
- How is the proprietary period of data regulated?
- How can I make use of the Phase 3 1d spectra I just downloaded?
- I have problems untarring .tar files.
- CalSelector
- Can I customize the association by specifying the nature and number of calibration files?
- How do I access the user documentation in addition to these FAQs?
- How do I trigger the CalSelector tool, i.e. the association of science and calibrations?
- I am denied access to calibrations, which should always be public. Why is that?
- In some cases the association is marked as incomplete, but it seems to me that all the necessary files are there. Could you, please, advise?
- My request is split over several pages and the “Select All” button allows me to select for download only the files listed in one single page. Is there a way to download the entire request at once?
- What do all those icons in the request page mean (old way)?
- What do file types MASSOC and RASSOC mean?
- What is the content of the association package?
- What is the time coverage of the CalSelector?
- What is the xml file that comes in each dataset?
- When do associations become available?
- Why are sometimes more science files associated than requested?
- Why are there fewer xml files than datasets as the result of my request?
- Why does my query with CalSelector return a lot of incomplete associations?
- Why is the category of a file not displayed for some files?
- Why is the number of files requested different from the number of files downloaded?
- Why is it that I have requested processed calibrations, but I get raw ones, instead?
- Data Requests
- How can I download data?
- Can I retrieve processed data from the Archive?
- How come some files I requested can be downloaded now whereas before they showed the "Denied Access" icon (old way) or Access ="NO" (new Download Portal Service)?
- How does the download script work?
- The download manager does not seem to work. Can I still retrieve the files requested?
- What shall I do when a file download fails?
- What is the maximum number of files I can submit as a request?
- How can I check the quality of science observations?
- Which information can I find in a Night Log?
- How do I programmatically access the Archive?