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OST Special Message: 14/03/2013
Dear OST User,
We have just implemented a slight tweak in our routine to check if an uploaded file is indeed a FITS file. This is to overcome an occassional memory leak we have been experiencing. Our testing shows this method is more robust, however if you do experience a problem, particularly if you are confident your FITS file is valid please email
Adam.
Thanks,
The OST Team. - 14/03/2013
OST Special Message: 25/02/2013
The OST Team would like to apologise for the distruption to the OST service over the weekend. The cause of the failure is being investigated and will be remedied in the new OST version, due for release for the ALMA Cyle 2 call for proposal period.
No user data was lost during this period of OST inactivity.
Thank-you for you patience.
The OST Team. - 25/02/2013
OST Special Message: 26/11/2012
Following the resolution of the disk overload issue on 23/11/2012, a second problem caused the OST to freeze over the weekend. The problem has now been resolved.
We apologise for the inconvenience and thank users for their patience.
The OST Team. - 26/11/2012
OST Special Message: 23/11/2012
Many apologies to anyone who submitted jobs between 1120 and 1300 on 23/11/2012; any jobs submitted during this time were lost due to a disc partition becoming full unexpectedly.
This issue has now been resolved,
however jobs which were submitted were unfortunately lost.
Please resubmit you OST jobs.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
The OST Team. - 23/11/2012
OST Special Message: 12/11/2012
Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics which hosts the ALMA OST in the UK ARC Node is currently experiencing network difficulties. As such the OST is currently not available.
Once the network problems have been resolved the OST will be back to full operations.
Sorry for any inconvenience.
UPDATE 19/11/2012:
This issue has now been resolved.
The OST Team. - 12/11/2012
OST Special Message: 10/08/2012
Due to scheduled maintainence of the power systems at Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (home of the OST) on Wednesday the 15th and Friday the 17th of August 2012, the OST will be unavailable for most or parts of both these days.
The OST should be back to full operation by Monday the 20th August 2012 at the very latest.
Sorry for any inconvenience.
The OST Team. - 10/08/2012
OST Special Message: 10/07/2012
Due to the current high demand on the OST, the number of days a users simulation is stored on the system before being deleted has been reduced from the standard 12 days to 5 (it was briefly 7 but this proved insufficient a cut!).
The OST remains unchanged otherwise so if your submission is removed but you require it again, you can simply repeat the simulation as before and you will recieve the same result.
Sorry for any inconvenience and thanks to all OST users for using the OST.
The OST Team. - 10/07/2012
OST Special Message: 03/07/2012
Many apologies to anyone who submitted jobs between July 2 1820 and July 3 0953; these jobs were lost due to a disc partition becoming full. These were the numbers:
20120702182033kZWVR
20120702193043KxHxK
20120702214959cuOoq
20120702220649PSNxo
20120702231431nxXYp
20120703015842ZGsMD
20120703052546NqwrX
20120703085140PAsIA
20120703091731mPfKD
20120703091913QpSLr
20120703092452IXClO
20120703092535HpVnF
20120703093228fpHgS
20120703093254OocaN
20120703093306DMHQX
20120703094132TPTWj
20120703094952ZuuCT
20120703095329vWTaa
This failure was not due to any of these jobs and they can be resubmitted as safely as any other simulation.
Sorry for any inconvenience,
The OST Team. - 03/07/2012
OST Special Message: 26/06/2012
Hello to everyone at the ESO ALMA Community Day! Hope you have a good day!
The OST Team. - 26/06/2012
OST Technical Difficulties: 18/06/2012
The OST is now back to full functionality, the problem arose in CASA 3.4's new feature of requiring optimised image sizes to ensure time efficiency in the clean algorithm.
OST users simulations are now scaled to have an optimum number of integers to ensure this matches cleans requirements.
The OST recently switched from CASA 3.3 to CASA 3.4, after this switch a minor technical difficulty has arisen making the OST loose functionality. As such we have temporarily disabled the OST.
We will restore this OST as soon as this has been fixed.
We apologise for the inconvenience.
The OST Team. - 18/06/2012
OST Important Message: 31/05/2012
We have just released the ALMA OST Version 1.2. This is an upgrade to reflect ALMA capabilities in Cycle 1.
The new features are documented in the
help documentation.
Though the new OST version has been tested extensively, please let us know of any problems you experience at
this email address
The OST Team. - 31/05/2012
OST Important Message: 25/05/2012
Between Today (25/05/2012) and Thursday the 31st of May 2012, the OST will be upgraded. The upgrade will include a number of new features to reflect ALMA Cycle 1 capabilities.
During this time there maybe times when the OST is unavailable and a holding page put in place of the normal webpage. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience caused. It is our aim to have the ALMA OST Version 1.2 fully functional by the ALMA Cycle 1 call for proposals announcement.
The OST Team. - 25/05/2012
OST Message: 03/10/2011
After this weekends power switch-off at the JBCA, the OST is now back to normal!
The OST Team. - 03/10/2011
OST Important Message: 22/09/2011
Due to planned maintenance on at Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, (home of the ALMA OST), the OST will be offline from 1500 Friday September 30th 2011 until approximately 1000 on Monday October 3rd 2011. Sorry for the inconvenience.
The OST Team. - 22/09/2011
OST Important Message: 01/09/2011 EDIT 05/09/2011
Regarding last weeks technical difficulties the OST is now back to full functionality. The only remaining issues are somewhat cosmetic and
DO NOT affect the OSTs function.
Due to some recent technical issues which have arrisen at JBCA where the OST is hosted, the OST is experiencing some minor problems at the moment. Full functionality will hopefully be reinstated later today.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
The OST Team. - 01/09/2011
OST News 05/07/2011
The OST Team would like to say thank-you to all the users of the OST during the ALMA Cycle 0 proposal call and wish them all the best of luck with their proposals.
Thank-you again for using the OST.
The OST Team. - 05/07/2011
OST Important Message 24/06/2011 EDIT 28/06/11
Due to the recent surge in usage of the OST we are implementing a time limit on the length of time an OST output will be available on the web of 12
14 days.
As the ALMA deadline is approaching access to all OST simulations is clearly important, as such whilst the data of older simulations will not be available online it will be stored at the UK ARC and available upon request. To request data for simulations older than 12
14 days please email
OST Admin with the OST Job ID number (e.g. 20110624123456ukARC) of the desired simulation. We will aim to respond with the data within one working day (UK time).
Alternatively, due to the short processing time of OST simulations it is possible to repeat a simulation very quickly.
Thank you for using the OST.
The OST Team. - 24/06/2011
OST Important Message 20/06/2011
A temporary memory fault between 1534 and 1609 BST (UT+1) on June 20 2011 caused the jobs submitted in this time (6 in total) to be missing key information required to run these simulations. As such we have had to remove these submissions from the queue. Part of the missing information is the users e-mail address so we are unable to contact them directly. We apologise for the inconvenience, however, the memory issue has now been resolved and the OST will function as normal.
Our apologies again. Thank-you..
The OST Team. - 20/06/2011
OST News 20/06/2011
A paper regarding the OST is now a now available on arXiv (
arxiv.org/abs/1106.3516). The paper is to appear in the proceedings of
Astronomy with Megastructures: Joint Science with the E-ELT and SKA. This is the recommended article for use when referencing the ALMA OST.
The OST Team. - 20/06/2011
OST Important Message 13/06/2011
A solution to the CD matrix issues (see
below) for user uploaded FITS files has now been implemented and allows the OST to successfully process these files. We will continue to monitor the processing of these images to ensure the solution covers all eventualities.
We would like to thank the CASA team for their help in solving this matter and the OST users for their patience.
The OST Team. - 13/06/2011
It has recently come to our attention that user uploaded FITS files which use the CD matrix FITS header keywords are not being handled correctly by the OST backend.
This problem leads to the OST failing to process these jobs, freezing the OST or occasionally stalling the OST server.
Images from the following instruments are known to contain the CD matrix keywords and lead to the aforementioned problem:
- Spitzer: IRAC
- Spitzer: MIPS
- HAWK-I
In collaboration with the CASA team a solution has now been found which will be implemented into the OST. Due to the need to test this solution we expect it to be in place by 14/06/2011.
Until then an IDL script which will convert between CD matrix and CDELT is available
here (
NOTE this requires the IDL astrolib library). Alternately we recommend where possible using FITS files which do not contain the CD matrix keywords but instead use the CDELT1/CDELT2 keywords.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thank-you for using the OST.
The OST Team. - 10/06/2011.
OST Update 31/05/2011
On the 31st of May 2011 a number of upgrades were added to the OST moving it from version 1.0 to version 1.1.
These upgrades are as follows:
- New FITS processing. The FITS handling used by the OST has been made more robust to the variety of FITS headers used by different instruments and observatories throughout astronomy, overcoming most sources of problems with user submissions to the OST.
- User uploaded FITS files which are preprocessed using the new FITS handling process are offered as a downloadable data product (in FITS format). Additionally the OST output page now includes a downloadable simdata.last file for use in CASA.
- A bug in the image scaling parameter has now been corrected. Images can now be re-scaled over a wide range of values.
- The OST now provides users with a pointing pattern for mosaicking, this is plotted over the sky image. (Provided there are less than 30 pointings as the image gets too cluttered beyond this value).
- The OST output images (in PNG format) now explicitly state that they are displayed with axes in pixel unit. The downloadable resulting FITS or CASA format simulations are in sky coordinates.
- The OST Library now includes a protocluster image which is accessible from the drop down menu on the main page.
The OST Team. - 31/05/2011.
