Accessing Your Data

The easiest way to retrieve data from Keck is to get it from the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA). Raw data is ingested in to KOA the morning after the observing run and an email is sent to the PI with instructions for downloading.

If observers need to get the data more urgently, such as during the night. They have two options to move the data. They can either 1) push the data from Keck to their home institution using scp, sftp, rsync, or similar or 2) they can pull it from Keck to a computer they control (e.g. their laptop or a machine at their home institution).

Pushing the data from Keck:

To push the data, the computer you are sending the data to needs to be accessible from the outside world. Using a terminal in the instrument VNC session, navigate to the directory where the data sits, and run a command to send the data. An example might be:

rsync -av *fits myusername@mycomputer.myinstitution.edu:/path/to/data

This is easier than pulling the data (see below), but is only feasible if the destination computer is accessible and has a static address.

Pulling the data

To pull data from Keck to your computer, you will need to go through the process of authenticating through the Keck firewall as Keck computers are not necessarily visible to the outside world.

If you are using the Keck RemoteObserving software, you can authenticate with the command:

This will not bring up any VNCs for instrument control, but will take the step of authenticating you through the firewall. You’ll need that software to be properly configured for this to work. If you need to authenticate manually, ask your SA or OA for instructions.

Once you have authenticated, you can pull from your laptop or your home institution. An example might be:

rsync -av mosfire1@mosfire.keck.hawaii.edu:/s/sdata1300/mosfire1/2020jan01 .

This will grab the entire contents of the 2020jan01 directory for user mosfire1 and copy it to the local computer where the command was run.