This page offers links to recommended documentation and addresses frequently anticipated questions related to the JWST Release of the first science data. Check the material here, your question might already be answered! On this page... |
Especially during the first week or two we expect traffic to be much higher in a condensed period of time than usual. To help with this, we hvae created bulk download scripts for the ERO programs, Highlighted Commissioning datasets, and all Commissioning datasets. These scripts download data from Amazon cloud straight to your machine. They are used with no cost to you, and require no account of any kind. We strongly recommend you use these bulk download scripts to retrieve ERO and Commissioning data sets, rather than attempt large downloads through the MAST Portal, astroquery.mast, or other mast.stsci.edu addresses.
For the first couple days, many files need to migrate from "exclusive access" to "anonymous access". While that migration happens, some data sets might be marked as public based on their Release Date, but have not completed this migration. If that is the case, you will not be able to download the data if you are not signed in to your STScI account (i.e., "anonymous access"). Instead, you can:
Note that this is not a common occurrence, it is an artifact of holding up large amounts of data to support Commissioning and ERO week. For normal operations where data is released continuously, the migration process is not a limiting factor.
Cycle-1 data will appear in MAST beginning on 14 July. See the Data Release Timeline for details.
Direct your browser to the MyST site, and follow the instructions in the MAST User Accounts article in the Portal Guide.
There are multiple ways to discover JWST Observations. For instance:
JWST
" in the Mission filter and enter a start date, e.g., "2022-07-02
" in the Start Time filter, then click the Search button.obs_collection="JWST"
and some other parameter such as instrument_name="MIRI"
. See the astroquery.mast documentation for details.That is a difficult question to answer with precision. A lot of the data gets processed within an hour or two, but there are a few edge cases where it takes more than a day. But that’s after the data processing system gets all of the pieces from Flight Operations. Many hours can elapse between the end of an exposure and transmission of that data to the ground. This is largely because JWST does not have continuous contact with the ground in the high-bandwidth channel that is required to transmit high-volume science data. That said, it is likely that most data will appear in MAST within a day or two of the end of the last exposure in an observation.
Generally the Level-2b (calibrated) and Level-3 (calibrated and combined) products are most appropriate for science analysis. Consult the JDox article Getting Started with JWST Data for details.
Navigate your browser to the special DOI Portal. Follow the instructions in the Special Searches article in the Portal Guide, specifically the section on Create a DOI.