Welcome to the starting point for access to data from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS).  This page provides a brief summary of the facilities and data products to guide Pan-STARRS archive users.  More complete information is provided on linked pages (see below).

Pan-STARRS1 is system for wide-field astronomical imaging developed and operated by the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) is the first part of Pan-STARRS to be completed and is the basis for Data Release 1 (DR1).  The PS1 survey used a 1.8 meter telescope and its 1.4 Gigapixel camera (GPC1; see PS1 GPC1 camera) to image the sky in five broadband filters (g, r, i, z, y). The PS1 Science Consortium funded the operation of the Pan-STARRS1 telescope, located on Mount Haleakala in Hawaii for the purposes of astronomical research. The PS1 consortium is made up of astronomers and engineers from 10 institutions from four countries. 

The data from PS1 are archived at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore Maryland, and can be accessed through MAST, the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. Additional support for the PS1 public science archive is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

The web site for Pan-STARRS in Hawaii also describes the project.

Quick links to the MAST PS1 Archive User Interface:

Use the following links to jump right to the MAST PS1 Science Archive interfaces and get started using PS1 data!

PS1 Object Catalog Search: http://archive.stsci.edu/panstarrs/search.php

PS1 Image Cutout Server: http://ps1images.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/ps1cutouts

PS1 Casjobs SQL Server: http://mastweb.stsci.edu/ps1casjobs

PS1 Science Archive Home: http://panstarrs.stsci.edu/

What data is available in DR1 and what data will be available in DR2?

The full data processing procedures and data products that result are described in PS1 Data processing procedures.  

PS1 data products are served in an archive operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), in Baltimore, Maryland.

• The PS1 archive includes images and catalogs from several defined surveys, including observations of three quarters of the sky ("3PI Survey," which is available in DR1) carried out several times per filter and over a four-year time span.  In addition, there are nightly observations of ten smaller fields distributed across the sky (the "Medium Deep Survey," not part of DR1).
• The PS1 archive includes search forms for retrieving image cutouts, full images, and catalog data. The Pan-STARRS Interface (PSI) uses a SQL interface (CasJobs) allows expert users to craft more sophisticated queries.

The following image and catalog products are available in DR1: 

• PS1 Stack images, which are co-added images made from the multiple exposures taken over the survey.  Stacks provide the best signal-to-noise, and the source catalogs created from the stacks are recommended as a starting point for data analysis.
• PS1 Source extraction and catalogs describes how point-source and extended-object photometry is measured from the PS1 Stack images. These source extractions are made available in DR1.
• Mean values of the point-source and extended-object photometry from the PS1 Warp images will be made available in DR1.

The following image and catalog products will be made available in DR2:

• PS1 Warp images, which are the result of resampling and realigning the camera images into a skycell of the PS1 Sky Tessellation, a set of common pixel-grid images with simple projections from the sky. Warps are astrometrically and photometrically calibrated.
• Extracted photometry for point sources and extended objects from the PS1 Warp images will be made available in DR2. The DR2 source database will allow users to extract information on any time variation of source photometry.
• All data from DR1 will be available in DR2 as well.

PS1 data release dates

• PS1 DR1 occurred on December 19, 2016.
• PS1 DR2 is scheduled for mid-May 2017

PS1 thumbnail sketch

Want a short, succinct summary of PS1, how it was executed and what kinds of data have been produced?  Check out the slide deck below.  It is now a few months old, and so details should come from these pages, but it presents a good summary of the project.

PS1 user information v1

You are on the home page for PS1-dox, which are the web pages at STScI created to document and explain PS1 and its data products.  This first release of PS1-dox is intentionally minimal in order to focus on the main issues a potential user of the PS1 dataset will face.  Details will be added as time permits and as questions arise from users.

How to use PS1-dox

These user information pages for PS1 are intended to be individually focused and broken down into a well-linked tree.  They approximate the structure of Wikipedia.

In particular, this structure makes it possible for users to search specifically within the domain of PS1-dox, reducing false positives significantly.  We welcome suggestions and comments that can improve our presentation. See [[PS1 help contacts]].

PS1 user information topics

There are five primary informational topics, with links below, that provide further details:

• PS1 The Pan-STARRS1 facilities and hardware
• PS1 Data processing procedures
• PS1: Image data products
• PS1 Source extraction and catalogs
• PS1 How to retrieve and use PS1 data

How to get help

• Try the FAQ page: PS1 Frequently asked questions.
• Contact archive@stsci.edu with questions.

Credit where it is due

Here is the text for acknowledging PS1 in your publications:

The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys (PS1) and the PS1 public science archive have been made possible through contributions by the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS Project Office, the Max-Planck Society and its participating institutes, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, The Johns Hopkins University, Durham University, the University of Edinburgh, the Queen's University Belfast, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated, the National Central University of Taiwan, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX08AR22G issued through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, the National Science Foundation Grant No. AST-1238877, the University of Maryland, Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

In addition, please cite the following papers describing the instrument, survey, and data analysis as appropriate:

(List key PS1 publications here)

People and organizations that built and supported PS1

Sixteen organizations in five nations are supporting Pan-STARRS.