National Astronomical Observatory of Japan / Astronomy Data Center
Digitized Sky Survey Data Archive

This interface is developed for the purpose to serve astronomical image data stored in CD-ROMs to those who are involved or interested in astronomical researches and education.

NOTICE(2012-08-14):
You have to obtain SMOKA user account to use DSS Batch interface. An SMOKA user account is used for both this service and SMOKA system. Go to SMOKA account registration form to obtain your account. Only registered email address can be accepted in this service.

1. Brief overview of image sources in CD-ROMs

1.1. Digitized Sky Survey ( DSS ) 1 & 2

DSS1 includes images for the entire sky digitized with a spatial resolution of 1.7 arcsec/pixel from the "POSS-I E" survey plates (approximately R) for the northern hemisphere taken with the Palomar Schmidt telescope and from the "SERC J" survey plates (Bj) for the southern hemisphere taken with the UK Schmidt telescope. DSS2, on the other hand, is an on-going project aiming the entire sky images digitized with a spatial resolution of 1.0 arcsec/pixel from the "POSS-II" survey plates (Bj,R,I) for the northern hemisphere taken with the Palomar Schmidt telescope and from the "SERC" and "AAO" survey plates (R) for the southern hemisphere taken with the UK Schmidt telescope. See STScI Digitized Sky Survey for details.

2. How to use the interface

The DSS On-line Service can be also used in a batch mode via e-mail querying. Before using this service, a user registration of SMOKA system is required. An SMOKA user account is used for both this service and SMOKA system. Visit SMOKA account registration form to obtain your SMOKA account. Note that only registered email address can be accepted in this service. You do not have to fill "Subject" field when sending your request.

The main body of the querying e-mail should include exclusively a list made up of the following 12 columns ;

Col	(1)	:	Identifier of the field
Col	(2)-(4)	:	R.A. (hour,minute,second)
Col	(5)-(7)	:	Dec. (degree,minute,second)
Col	(8),(9)	:	Field width and height (arcmin)
Col	(10)	:	Equinox [ J2000 | B1950 ]
Col	(11)	:	DSS version [ DSS1 | DSS2 ]
Col	(12)	:	Image extraction mode
			e : From a plate whose edge is furthest from the requested field. c : From a plate whose center is closest to the requested field. PLATE-ID : From the plate specified. Don't confuse with REGION-ID. n : return the list of all plates on which the specified region occurs on by an e-mail. The images are not extracted.
Col	(13)	:	Image compression mode
			G : Image compression by gzip. B : Image compression by bzip2. X : Image compression by xz. U : No compression.

An example is like ;

field01 12      5       13      30      45      32      10.     10.     B1950   DSS1    e       G
N7793   23      57      49.4    -32     35      24.     60.     60.     J2000   DSS1    04IN    U
NGC253  0       47      34.3    -25     17      32.     45.     45.     J2000   DSS2    c       B

You do not have to align the column entries in the entire list. It is required, however, that each of the column entries be separated by blanks and that any entries in a single column not be separated by blanks and/or tabs. Note that a request will be skipped without notification if the PLATE-ID you specified is invalid. Before you send the list, check the staging disk capacity so as to make sure that you can create all the requested images. For example, a 10' x 10' image needs 260kB and 720kB spaces for DSS1 and 2, respectively.

Send the list to

using your email client software:

A receipt e-mail will soon reach you. When the inquired images are created, you will be informed of how to retrieve them from ftp server.

Although all the staging directories will be automatically deleted in 10 days after their creations, we request you to delete unnecessary directories by yourselves to save the finite storage space. Send a list of the directory names which are no more necessary, like

20120101_112233_12345
20120101_113344_23456
20120101_114455_01234

to

Wild characters ("*" and "?") and any entries of non-staging directory names will be neglected.

3. Acknowledging DSS

People who used DSS are requested to include acknowledgments in any publications as appropriate. See acknowledging DSS for details. We would be also very happy if our DSS interface will be acknowledged as well. Thank you in advance.

Reference

Paturel, G., Fouqué, P., Bottinelli, L., Gouguenheim, L., 1989, Catalogue of Principal Galaxies (Lyon: Obs.de Lyon)
Nilson, P., 1973, Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies (Uppsala Astron. Obs. Ann. 6)

Questions and comments are welcome to :