The TIMAS PAPCO Module 11/13/2001: Version 1.4
Available now from the lasp server. 

_v03 Data files are now available and should be used
Descriptions of the file format

Version 3 files are available now (6/3/02) from the PI team and will be submitted shortly to NASA's CDAWeb site at Goddard. _v03 files will be available for all intervals with valid TIMAS data from March 17, 1996 to December 8, 1998 from CDAWeb

 

|Input Options |Known Problems |
| Available data intervals |
Archive of data files

Overview  (See the large file Contents of the TIMAS High Resolution Data Files for more information.)

• Data are available for the 4 major mass species

H+, O+, He+ and He++
• High time resolution [up to 2 spin or 12 seconds]

and include flags to select
• Energy-Time spectrograms averaged over all pitch angles for each mass

weighted or unweighted by relative solid angle contribution
• High or Medium Energy and Angle Resolution and
• High or Adequate Data Quality
• Default for PAPCO display is Medium Energy and Angle Resolution High data quality, averaged over all pitch angles with the contribution from various pitch angle ranges weighted according to their relative solid angles. NOTE: Significant qualitative information can be obtained by selecting Adequate data quality displays, especially in cusp and boundary layer intervals.
• Default for CDAWeb display is to pass all data independent of data quality flags. BEWARE: the quality of TIMAS data in a significant fraction of cusp and boundary layer intervals is degraded. These data are not useful for quantitative applications. Be sure plot the TIMAS data quality flags to identify intervals of degraded data.
• In Spectrogram Format Example Spectrogram(s)
• Energy-Time spectrograms averaged over all pitch angles

weighted or unweighted (omni) by relative solid angle contribution
• Energy-Time spectrograms averaged over 0-30 degree pitch angle

field aligned (Aligned)
• Energy-Time spectrograms averaged over 75-105 degree pitch angle.

perpendicular (Perp)
• Energy-Time sepctrograms average over 150-180 degree pitch angle

field opposed (Opposed)
 
• Data files are independent of PAPCO. They are in NASA Common Data Format (CDF)
  one data file per 24 hour interval
  Note TIMAS data quality in these files varies. It is necessary to identify and select high quality data data intervals if these data are used for quantitative analysis. Data quality flags as a function of time are included in each data file. The complete data format is documented in the CDF skeleton table as well as on line. Access to the seleton table information in each CDF formatted file can be obtained using NASA supplied documentation

   Data in these files can be displayed using the NASA maintained CDAWeb software. Contact Mona Kessel at NASA/Goddard for details.

  Description of the CDF file format.
  • Generic Skeleton Table Describing the Data Input File
  • Generic SFDU File Describing input files and software used

Source code and input data files

• Version 1.4 is now available on the lasp server
  Note A version of PAPCO 09 obtained after March 24, 1999 is required for version 1.4.
  • Version 1.4 release notes
  • Major changes are correction of a Y2K bug, the energy slice bug noted below, and support of the Papco output function.
  
  
• Version 1.3 is now available on the lasp server
  Note A version of PAPCO 09 obtained after March 24, 1999 is required for version 1.3.

  Improvements in V1.3

  • Choice of Number or Energy Flux for spectrograms
  • Implementation of the PAPCO output features. TIMAS data can now be saved in ASCII or IDL save set format using this PAPCO feature.
  • There are several new color bar and axis label writing features in PAPCO V. 9.2 (which is currently in testing). TIMAS labeling on the right side the panel is improved by using these features. This update is included in the V1.3 module as comments. These minor improvements can be activated be removing the IDL comment characters in two sections of the file p_timas_spec.pro . These sections can be found by searching for the string "9.2" in this file.

  Known Problems with Version 1.3 are listed below
  

• Version 1.2 is still available on the lasp site for PAPCO IDL source code

Known Problems with _v01 data files

• Systematic overestimation of He++ fluxes
  H+/He++ flux ratios derived from _v01 PAPCO data files are not meaningful.
• Missing magnetometer data
  Magnetometer data are not available for long stretches of unfortunately interesting intervals. We are revising our level_1 processing to obtain magnetometer data from a more robust source
  When magnetometer data are NOT available, an OMNI directional flux is reported in the lowest pitch angle data bin and zero in the other 11 bins. The TIMAS PAPCO module will display data for these intervals ONLY if the OMNIDIRECTIONAL display option is selected.
• Pitch angle data are NOT corrected for effects of plasma drift
  
• Energy flux data are NOT corrected for non zero space craft potentials
• Files created after 5/1/99 are in CDF 2.6 data format. Files created before are in CDF 2.5 data format. If you can read some, but not all TIMAS data files, check that you are using IDL 5.0+ and/or CDF 2.6+ software

Known Problems with the (1.3) release

• Display of energy spectra using the slice extent feature has not been fully tested. Line plots of energy flux have been incorrect for some cases. A patch for this problem is available
• Module Edit keys do not work with PAPCO_08 and earlier or with PAPCO_09 obtained before April 24, 1999. Update your main PAPCO to a current version!

Known Problems with the (1.2) release

• Module Crashes when attempting to plot more than 24 hours of data either simultaneously or sequentially. Work around is to exit PAPCO and restart after each long (greater than 16 hour) data plot.

Known Problems with the (1.1) release

• Under PAPCO_09 There is an error in data file selection.  When a data file for a requested year/month/day is not available, the current module will use data from an available year/month/day and present it as data from the requested day!  This problem does not exist under PAPCO_08 and earlier.
• Zoom mode works on time axis only
• Automatic Z scaling may fail with some data
• A small number ( <<1% ) of data records have an incorect time. These records show up in the PAPCO plots as black bars of 12 seconds duration.

Problems in earlier versions that have been corrected

• The crashing associated with processing multiple long data intervals has been significantly reduced.
• The date selection problem has been fixed by making the TIMAS module Y2K compliant in version 1.2.
• V1.1 fixed bug that caused timas_make_spec_matrix to crash when high-res data was requested, but only low-res data existed. This is the case for almost all intervals of He⁺ and some intervals of He⁺⁺. Now the panel is not plotted and a message is printed in the log window that no data meets the selection criteria.
• Incorrect fluxes in most He+ and some other data in the energy channel centered on 33 keV/e in data files produced before 4/3/98.

We are in the process of regenerating all data files.
• Conflicts with Hydra fixed in version 0.3
• Postscript output doesn't work fixed in version 0.3
• The module has only been tested on Sun UNIX systems. Data are read and manipulated ONLY with IDL routines. In principle the module should work on any platform that supports IDL and is compatible with the CDF file format we use. Currently we are using CDF 2.5, but we will be moving to CDF 2.6 later this year. CDF 2.6 files are ONLY compatible with IDL 5.0. CDF 2.5 files are compatible with IDL 4.0 and 5.0

Input data files will be archived and distributed on-line and by CDROM when files are available from the PWG Project 

Input data files for the TIMAS PAPCO module are available for 24 hour UT day intervals for selected days from several sources

• A TBD data server at LANL
• The PWG Site
• NSSDC CDAWeb

Related Sites

• The PAPCO Site
• On-Line users guide for PAPCO
• The POLAR/Hydra Site
  requires username/password
• CDAWeb Page Alternative display of TIMAS data in PAPCO format.
  requires username/password
• TIDE data from Marshall
• The TIMAS home page