Appendix 1. Introduction to the 2MASS Extended Mission and Ancillary Data Products

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3. Distribution Mode for the Ancillary Data Products

a. On-Line Access

i. The NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA)

• Extracted Source Tables and Metadata Tables

  Logical queries on the Survey Point and Extended Source Reject Tables, Working Databases, Catalogs, Merged Source Information Tables, and Metadata Tables for each data set can be made via the IRSA/GATOR Catalog Access on-line service. GATOR enables simple and complex searches on any Catalog attribute, such as position, brightness, color, quality flags, etc., or combinations thereof. Queries may be submitted using either a simple "Query-By-Table" form or with user-customizable SQL input.

  Note - GATOR does not support full-downloads of the 2MASS Databases and Catalogs. Many of the Extended Mission Tabular data products will be made available in bulk distribution via ftp download in the near future.




• Atlas and Quicklook Images

  FITS format images from the 2MASS Survey, 6x and Calibration Scan Image Atlases may be retrieved using the IRSA/2MASS Image Services.

  • The IRSA/2MASS Image Services are a suite of web-based services that allow users to view and download 2MASS J, H, and/or K_s Atlas Images. Images may be requested individually or in batch mode, and can be specified by position, object name, region or other 2MASS-specific image attributes such as coadd_key or observation date and scan number.

    Important Note - The Survey "Quicklook" Images returned by the 2MASS Image Server are FITS images that are expanded from lossy-compressed Atlas Images. These images are not recommended for quantitative brightness measurements of point or extended sources. Please refer to the Source Databases and/or Catalog for source photometry.

  
  
  

b. Electronic Access to Tabular Data Products

The Extended Mission tabular data products will be accessible for bulk download via ftp/wget in the near future.

c. Web Access to the Combined Calibration Scan Images and Source Lists

The 2MASS Combined Calibration Scan Images and extracted source lists may be retrieved interactively via a web interface using the link below. The extracted source tables may also be queried using the IRSA/GATOR Catalog Access service described above.

Combined Calibration Field Data Retrieval Page

[Last Updated: 2006 October 2; by R. Cutri]

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