WIYN 3.5m Observatory

GETTING YOUR DATA HOME

One Degree Imager (ODI) data

ODI observers do not need to bring any data storage media for their data. All ODI data are immediately transferred and ingested into the ODI Portal, Pipeline, and Archive (ODI-PPA), processed, and then made available to the observer via a searchable archive. See the ODI-PPA user's manual and/or contact observatory staff for more information.

All Other Instruments

For all other instruments (WHIRC, Hydra, Sparsepak, Hexpak and Gradpak) you have several options for getting your data home.

Bring a Harddrive
The easiest way is to transfer all of your data to a personal external harddrive. Both Mac mini computers have USB ports on the left-hand side of their monitors. All data acquisition computers are accessible via the Mac mini's so it's seamless to transfer your data to your harddrive.
To do so, connect your harddrive via the USB port on the left side of either monitor on wiyn-2 or wiyn-5 and ensure that the harddrive is turned on. From the Finder menu on wiyn-2 or wiyn-5 select Go -> Home. Double-click the directory labelled "data". There are 3 subdirectories - 1 for each of the data acquisition computers. WHIRC data is stored on Dust, and Hydra/Bench/IFU data is stored on Cork. Select the appropriate directory and navigate to your data directory. Double-click the icon on the desktop for your harddrive. Then you simply drag your data from the data acquisition computer to your harddrive. Note that this could take a significant amount of time if you have a lot of data or your files are large. It is recommended that you backup your data regularly throughout your run.
FTP Your Data
You can also ftp your data to your home computer/institution (provided your securities permissions allow you to access your computer/institution from afar).
Burn to DVD/CD
A third option is to write your data to CD or DVD. The Mac mini computers as well as some of the data acquisition computers (Cork and Dust) do contain a CD or DVD drive.