An Archive of Spectra from the Mayall Fourier Transform Spectrometer at Kitt Peak

TL;DR

The paper presents the SpArc archive, a publicly accessible collection of nearly 10,000 astronomical spectra from the Mayall FTS at Kitt Peak, covering data from 1975 to 1995, with details on data processing and retrieval.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive spectral data archive from the Mayall FTS, including data processing, storage architecture, and access methods, enhancing data availability for researchers.

Findings

Archive contains over 10,000 spectra of diverse astronomical sources.

Data conversion from interferograms to FITS files is summarized.

Sample spectra demonstrate typical data quality and use cases.

Abstract

We describe the SpArc science gateway for spectral data obtained during the period from 1975 through 1995 at the Kitt Peak National Observatory using the Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) in operation at the Mayall 4-m telescope. SpArc is hosted by Indiana University Bloomington and is available for public access. The archive includes nearly 10,000 individual spectra of more than 800 different astronomical sources including stars, nebulae, galaxies, and Solar System objects. We briefly describe the FTS instrument itself, and summarize the conversion of the original interferograms into spectral data and the process for recovering the data into FITS files. The architecture of the archive is discussed, and the process for retrieving data from the archive is introduced. Sample use cases showing typical FTS spectra are presented.