Tags: atst, current rate, cutting edge, instrument development, mcmath, nso data, photographic data, plan introduction, prodigious amounts, raw data, roadmap, science products, solar data, solar facility, solis, telescopes, temporal range,
4/7/2003 12:20 PM Version 3
NSO Data Plan
Introduction
Along with cutting-edge scientific research and instrument development, it can be argued
that a major product of NSO is high-quality solar data. The current suite of instruments,
situated at the Dunn and McMath-Pierce Telescopes, the Evans Solar Facility, ISOON,
KPVT and GONG+, will soon be joined by SOLIS and eventually the ATST. All of these
facilities can and will produce prodigious amounts of data as seen in Table 1, which
shows the current and estimated average daily data rates from NSO facilities. Note that
these numbers are for complete, successful observing days, which occur approximately
65% of the time. In addition, these rates are for the science products and do not reflect the
much higher raw data rates that occur at the instruments. In addition, NSO has large
amounts of historic photographic data, which, if digitized, would extend the temporal
range of useful data into the past by at least 50 years.
Table 1 Estimated NSO Daily Data Rates
Facility Current Rate (GB) Future Rate
(GB)
Dunn 10 50
McMath-Pierce 5 15
Evans