James R. Lewis, Peter S. Bunclark (Royal Greenwich Observatory), Nicholas A. Walton (Isaac Newton Group)
Reference URL: http://archive.ast.cam.ac.uk/
The Isaac Newton Group's Wide Field Survey Programme (see http://www.ing.iac.es/WFCsur) is a multi-colour broadband imaging survey being carried out on the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope at the Observatorio Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma. The survey programme is expected to have a duration of five years during which time more than 200 square degrees of sky will be imaged in upto five colours at a spatial resolution of <1.2 arcseconds. In order to maximise its scientific impact, the data obtained through the survey programme are being made available to the community on a near real-time basis - there is no proprietory period.
We describe the techniques employed to meet the challenge of processing and disseminating the substantial data flows associated with this survey. Key areas addressed are: the pipelines developed to pre-process and process the data (e.g. flux and astrometric calibration) and the automation of routines to fulfill user requests for these data products, implemented through WWW interfaces. Additionally we describe advanced processing techniques and algorithms used in the production of image catalogues.