WISeREP - Getting started

 

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General

The Weizmann Interactive Supernova Data Repository (WISeREP) serves as an
archive of high-quality SN spectra, including both historical (legacy) data and
data that are accumulated by ongoing modern surveys and groups. The archive
provides information about objects, their spectra, photometry and related
metadata.

The redeveloped WISeREP V2.0 includes improved functionalities, as well
as additional ones, related to the displaying and manipulating of data
(interactive analysis utilities), self-maintaining of users & groups, reporting of
data (directly by registered users) and efficient bulk-downloading options of
metadata and physical files.

If making use of this database in your research, please cite:
2012PASP..124..668Y and acknowledge WISeREP and the URL https://wiserep.org

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Registration, reporting methods

Submitting reports of any kind or either being member of a group (thus having
access also to the group's proprietary/private data) requires registration for a user
account.

To register, go to Login / Create new account.

Contribution of data for objects, such as spectra/photometry, can now be
directly submitted to WISeREP (not having to go through the Weizmann team
members) either by interactive forms or via the Bulk reports method - submission
of JSON-formatted data or TSV lists in an automated way from defined machines
("Bots") of e.g. the various involved surveys.

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Groups, Proprietary period

Every registered user can create a new Group. Details of the group should be
filled in, including up to three group owners. Upon approval of the group by the
WISeREP administrators, users can ask to join the group, for the group's owners
to approve. A group can then be specified as the "source group" for the
contributed data, or be specified for sharing private/proprietary data only
among it's members as described below.

It is possible to specify proprietary period for whichever contributed data.

The data will then be visible and accessible only to members of the defined
"source group" and/or the "associated groups".

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Report form

Contribution/upload of data to the repository (spectra, photometry, phase info,
related files...) for a specific object can be easily performed using the
interactive form. Upon submission of the form, a new "Object report" is created
(a new object entry is also created if the object did not exist before on
WISeREP) with which the specified/uploaded entries (spectra, photometry...) are
associated.

The Report form consists of the following sections/stages:

1. Locating an object or either selecting to create a new one. Once an object
is located (by either its IAU-name or internal-name) its details are shown in
the top section. If willing to recommend update of details (Coords, redshift,
type etc...) the checkbox "Suggest update of object details" should be checked.
A source group (or "None") must be specified, and it is possible to specify a
proprietary period (alongside the associated groups) for the whole report. It
is also possible to specify an internal name, as well as any comments and a
list of reporters names.

2. Related files - It is possible to attach related files with the object
report.

3. Obj. Phases - It is possible to specify relevant phases for the object; e.g.
discovery, peak-light etc... with specification of the exact photometric data.

4. Spectra - a single or multiple spectra can be uploaded, alongside their
metadata, either by filling in the fields or by uploading a metadata list (TSV)
in the required format (template provided). If using the interactive fields,
and if uploading a FITS file - some header keywords are automatically injected
to the fields, subject to possible adjustments.

5. Photometry - Like for the spectra, either via filling in of the fields, or
via TSV upload.

Note that mandatory fields are marked with a red asterisk.

Once all is set, click the "Submit report" button for submission and upload of
the data.

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API - Bulk reports

The Bulk API method allows for submission of Object reports to WISeREP via
JSON-formatted data or TSV (Tab-Separated-Values) lists in an automated way
from defined machines (Bots) of e.g. the various contributing surveys.

The Bulk reports are being processed as promptly as possible in an
asynchronous mode, dependent on the actual incoming queue of reports and 
the server’s available resources.

A detailed manual of the Bulk APIs in pdf format will become available soon.

Python Sample codes for using the APIs can be downloaded here: Python.

Templates of the TSV metadata lists are up on the BULK page.

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API - Change proprietary period

TBD

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API - Search/Get objects

TBD

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Search pages

From the Object and Spectra Search pages it is possible to perform various
queries on the existing objects and spectra, as well as perform bulk downloads
of the data and meta-data.

The query fields section consist of the main fields and the "Advanced search"
options.

On the Submit button line, it is possible to define the no. of resulting
entries per page and click to download the data with the selected parameters.

On the spectra page, note the option to choose according to which phase the
epoch should be displayed in the resulting table. It is also possible to check
if to show the aggregated spectra plot and if to open the separate plots of
all spectra entries. The separate plots appear as the scrolling down the page
advances. 

Note that besides the observed spectra, WISeREP also hosts and
accommodates for synthetic/computed spectra in order to allow for both
quick and easy download of computed spectra that have been published in
papers, and also for quick comparisons (on the aggregated spectra plots)
between selected observed and computed spectra.

On the Spectra search page, it is possible to specify in the Advanced search
section specific Spectra/Object id's for selecting and displaying those
together with the resulting entries. In such a case, the "Force-include IDs"
checkbox should be marked. This is useful if e.g. wanting to compare a
specific spectrum in hand to additional ones, results of a given query. Also
for comparisons between observed and computed spectra, as mentioned.

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Object page

The Object page shows the full details of the object as they exist in the
repository, to include plots of the spectra and light curves.

If wanting to share or reference the URL of the object page (for the relevant
object), it is best to use the actual object name - whether the IAU-name or an
internal name, in the following manner; e.g.:

https://wiserep.org/iauname/2013fs
https://wiserep.org/internal-name/iPTF13dqy

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Downloads

It is possible to download your queries' results - both the metadata (in
whichever format: CSV/TSV/JSON) and the relevant physical files (spectra) -
via the various search pages and the object page.

The downloaded entries correspond to the entries shown on the page (according
to the 'Results in page' identifier); so there's a maximum of either 1000 or 250
displayed entries (per page) for the objects and spectra search, respectively.

If willing to download a complete large dataset of spectra (without having to
advance manually over the pages), the following sample code can be used, where
the query and download parameters should be arranged according to your needs.

e.g. To download TSV metadata list (&format=tsv) including ascii files
(&files_type=ascii) of all P200-DBSP (&instruments=1) SNe spectra
(&type_family=1) you may loop on the page parameter, 0..N, as follows:

https://wiserep.org/search/spectra?&type_family=1&instruments=1&format=t...
https://wiserep.org/search/spectra?&type_family=1&instruments=1&format=t...

... and till &page=N

If not being logged in (e.g. executing URLs through a script, like the above
sample code) and if wanting to access and download also private data (to which
you have access permissions, of course), you should use the
&personal_api_key=XXX parameter in the URLs you're constructing. The personal
API Key can be obtained from the My Account page (check the "Create new API
Key" checkbox and save).

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NGSF

NGSF - Next Generation SuperFit in python - is a template matching tool for the
spectral classification of Supernovae of all major types accompanied by a host
galaxy, inspired by Andy Howell's IDL Superfit (2005ApJ...634.1190H). The
software uses chi squared minimization to find the best combination of host
galaxy and supernova templates from a library of spectra in order to match a
spectrum of an object of interest.

NGSF varies three parameters to find the best fit for an object. These
parameters are: The constants of proportionality for both the supernova and host
galaxy templates, and the extinction law coefficient A_v (for an extinction law
with R=3.1). The computation is normalized to the error of the spectrum in
question, which we estimate using either of two separate techniques.

NGSF can be obtained as a standalone package from GitHub, here. The bank of
spectral templates should then be downloaded from here, and be placed in the
main NGSF folder.

Besides using NGSF locally, on your computer, it is also available for online
execution on WISeREP for a selected spectrum, without having to download the
spectrum or the standalone package. *** Note that you must be logged into
WISeREP in order to make use of this tool. ***

On the Spectra Search Page, simply click on the iF icon of a given spectrum
entry and click the NGSF button. A pop-up window will appear, where you can
adjust the json parameters according to your needs and submit. (If a redshift
exists for the object, it's value will be specified by default alongside:
"use_exact_z": 1; but any of the parameters can be adjusted to your needs.) Upon
submission, you can click the link which appears, redirecting to the page where
the results will be shown, consisting of both a downloadable zip file as well as
displaying the resulting csv entries and the plots of the top spectral matches
(according to the specified parameter: "how_many_plots").

Expect an execution time of between a few seconds to several minutes, depending
on the chosen parameters (if to e.g. scan a range of redshifts or use a fixed
one, etc...)

If making use of this tool in your research, please make sure to cite Howell et
al. 2005 (2005ApJ...634.1190H) as the source of the original code, and this
AstroNote as the source for the new implementation.

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Feedbacks and comments on all levels are clearly most welcome.

Email: wiserep at weizmann.ac.il,  or via the contact-us page.


 

The following people have been involved in the design, development and administration of WISeREP Version 2.0:

Ofer Yaron, Avner Sass, Nikola Knezevic, Ilan Manulis, Eran Ofek and Avishay Gal-Yam.

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