Automated reduction of submillimetre single-dish heterodyne data from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope using ORAC-DR

TL;DR

This paper presents an automated data reduction pipeline for heterodyne observations at the JCMT, capable of processing large data volumes efficiently without user intervention.

Contribution

It introduces a fully automated reduction system using ORAC-DR that detects baselines, regridding parameters, and removes interference, applicable to various heterodyne instruments.

Findings

Successfully reduces large heterodyne datasets automatically

Detects and removes spectra with interference or anomalies

Applicable to historical and future JCMT data

Abstract

With the advent of modern multi-detector heterodyne instruments that can result in observations generating thousands of spectra per minute it is no longer feasible to reduce these data as individual spectra. We describe the automated data reduction procedure used to generate baselined data cubes from heterodyne data obtained at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. The system can automatically detect baseline regions in spectra and automatically determine regridding parameters, all without input from a user. Additionally it can detect and remove spectra suffering from transient interference effects or anomalous baselines. The pipeline is written as a set of recipes using the ORAC-DR pipeline environment with the algorithmic code using Starlink software packages and infrastructure. The algorithms presented here can be applied to other heterodyne array instruments and have been applied to data from historical JCMT heterodyne instrumentation.