APOGEE Data Access
Introduction
This page provides a summary of the files associated with the different steps of the APOGEE reduction pipeline. These tables include links to the file format documentation (the “data model”) and templates that can be used to generate Science Archive Server (SAS) URLs for those files.
All of the data, at all stages of reduction, are available through the SAS, generally in the form of FITS files. However, many users may be satisfied with the final allStar catalog, which gives radial velocities, stellar parameters, and abundances for each star, obtained from combined spectra. For users interested in radial velocity (RV) variations, there is a separate allVisit catalog, which gives RVs for each individual visit.
Most of the catalog data (but not the spectra themselves) have also been loaded into the Catalog Archive Server (CAS) database. For users who prefer a database interface (SQL), the CAS provides a great alternative to downloading the data files from the SAS. Simple queries can be used to select just the objects and parameters of interest, while more complex queries can be used to do complex calculations on many objects, thereby avoiding the need to download the data on them at all.
The table below gives the main summary files (on SAS) and database tables (in CAS). Note that the links into SAS below bring you into the full directory tree; before perusing that, it may be best to read both Understanding APOGEE Spectroscopic Data and the data model.
Reduction Version Numbers
APOGEE Version Conventions
The APOGEE pipeline is continually being improved, so it may be important to track the version of the pipeline that was used to reduce APOGEE spectra. To allow for changes in different sections of the pipeline without requiring all data to be rerun through all sections of the code again, four separate version names track the software/configuration used in different portions of the pipeline:
- APRED_VERS
- denotes the version of the basic spectra reduction used to generate the visit spectra.
- APSTAR_VERS
- denotes the version of the code used to combine individual visit spectra into higher signal-to-noise, resampled, combined spectra.
- ASPCAP_VERS
- denotes the version of the code used to determine the stellar atmospheric parameters for each combined spectrum.
- RESULTS_VERS
- denotes the version of the code used to (1) compile the final results, and (2) apply additional empirical corrections and set data quality flags based on evaluation of results for calibration objects. A given RESULTS_VERS implies versions of all of the preceding steps, and thus uniquely identifies the full set of software used.
DR13 Versions
APOGEE DR13 uses the following reduction/configuration versions:
- APRED_VERS
- r6
- APSTAR_VERS
- stars
- ASPCAP_VERS
- l30e
- RESULTS_VERS
(Version) - l30e.2
- Comment
- –
Catalogs of Quantities Measured from APOGEE Spectra
Summary FITS table files of cataloged parameters (as distinct from the spectra themselves) are provided in the SAS; for convenience, we have top-level links to these using the version name dr13. These catalog files are also loaded into the CAS to enable database access. Note that one of the FITS table files (allStar) is split into two separate CAS tables: aspcapStar and apogeeStar, and thus listed twice in the table below.
| description | SAS location | CAS table |
|---|---|---|
| catalog of ASPCAP parameters for observed stars | allStar-l30e.2.fits (in APOGEE_REDUX; see datamodel) |
aspcapStar |
| catalog of stellar parameters from combined spectra (e.g., RVs) |
allStar-l30e.2.fits (in APOGEE_REDUX; see datamodel) |
apogeeStar |
| catalog of parameters from individual visit spectra | allVisit-l30e.2.fits (in APOGEE_REDUX; see datamodel) |
apogeeVisit |
Spectral Data
Spectral data are available in the SAS. Three different types of reduced spectra are available: visit spectra, combined spectra, and ASPCAP spectra. Visit spectra give spectra of individual visits and are organized by PLATE and MJD. Combined spectra (all visits combined) and ASPCAP spectra (pseudocontinuum-normalized combined spectra) are organized by field (encoded by a LOCATION_ID).
One way to associate PLATES, LOCATION_ID, and field names is to look at the index embedded in the SAS. You can also get this information from the CAS or the summary data files, see, e.g., examples for plates or for location IDs.
To access APOGEE spectra, see the SAS webapp . This allows you to do some simple searches on objects and interactively plot the spectra. It can also be used to construct lists of small or large numbers of spectra to be downloaded in bulk, see Bulk Data Downloads.
| Description | SAS location | SAS interface |
|---|---|---|
| Pseudo-continuum normalized, combined spectra, with best matching synthetic spectrum, one file per object | aspcapStar-RESULTS_VERS-STARNAME.fits (in APOGEE_REDUX/APRED_VERS/APSTAR_VERS/ASPCAP_VERS/RESULTS_VERS/LOCATION_ID; see datamodel) |
aspcapStar-RESULTS_VERS-STARNAME.fits |
| Combined spectra, one file per object | apStar-APSTAR_VERS-STARNAME.fits (in APOGEE_REDUX/APRED_VERS/APSTAR_VERS/TELESCOPE/LOCATION_ID; see datamodel) |
apStar-APSTAR_VERS-STARNAME.fits |
| Individual spectra, one file per PLATE-MJD-FIBER | apVisit-APRED_VERS-PLATE-MJD-FIBER.fits (in APOGEE_REDUX/APRED_VERS/TELESCOPE/PLATE_ID/MJD5; see datamodel) |
apVisit-APRED_VERS-PLATE-MJD-FIBER.fits |
Intermediate Data Products
While most users are likely to be satisfied with the data in the files listed above, there are a number of lower level intermediate processed files, which we list here. The templates are in “C printf ” format, and can be used in C, bash, Python, and many other languages to automatically generate URLs.
APOGEE Raw Data Collection
APOGEE raw data are stored on the SAS. It is probably unlikely that users will want to access these, because the raw data contain all of the up-the-ramp detector reads (every 10s) for every exposure; it’s a lot of data!
| file type | in/out | Description | URL format | format parameters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| log file | out | records exposures collected on a night | not public | |
| apR | out | raw spectroscopic data frames | APOGEE_DATA/%d/apR-%c-%08d.apz | mjd, detector (a,b,or c), exposure id |
| plPlugMapM | in | records which fiber corresponds to which hole in a plate (and therefore to which objects, and to what coordinates on the sky) | not public |
APOGEE Visit Processing
The apred pipeline reads science and calibration exposures from the spectrographs, collapses these data cubes into two dimensional exposures, reduces and calibrates the science exposures, extracts the one dimensional spectra from the two dimensional exposures, corrects for sky emission and telluric absorption, stacks multiple dithered exposures into well-sampled spectra, and produces corresponding masks and noise estimates.
| file type | in/out | description | URL format | format parameters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| apPlan | in | the apred processing plan | APOGEE_REDUX/APRED_VERS/apo25m/%d/%05d/apPlan-%04d-%05d.par | plate, mjd, plate, mjd |
| apCframe | out | calibrated spectra for a single CCD and exposure | APOGEE_REDUX/APRED_VERS/apo25m/%04d/%05d/apCframe-%c-%08d.par | plate, mjd, chip (a, b, or c), exposure id |
| apPlate | out | the 300 combined flux- and wavelength-calibrated spectra over all exposures (potentially spanning multiple nights) for a given mapped plate | APOGEE_REDUX/APRED_VERS/apo25m/%s/%04d/apPlate-%04d-%05d.fits | plate, mjd, plate, mjd |
| apVisit | out | the combined flux- and wavelength-calibrated spectra over all exposures (potentially spanning multiple nights) for a given object on a given plate/MJD | APOGEE_REDUX/APRED_VERS/apo25m/%s/%04d/apVisit-%04d-%05d-%03d.fits | plate, mjd, plate, mjd |
Stellar Combination Processing (apstar)
For details about the process, see the page on visit combination and/or the reduction paper (Nidever et al., in prep).
| file type | in/out | description | URL format | format parameters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| apStar | out | Combined spectrum for an individual star | APOGEE_REDUX/%s/%s/%s/apStar-%s.fits | APRED_VERS, APSTAR_VERS, LOCATION_ID, APOGEE_ID |
| apField | out | Radial velocities, target information for all stars in a given field | APOGEE_REDUX/%s/%s/%s/apField-%d.fits | APRED_VERS, APSTAR_VERS, LOCATION_ID |
| apFieldVisits | out | Table of individual visit RVs for a given field | APOGEE_REDUX/%s/%s/%s/apFieldVisits-%d.fits | APRED_VERS, APSTAR_VERS, LOCATION_ID |
APOGEE Stellar Parameters and Chemical Abundances Pipeline (ASPCAP)
The ASPCAP stellar parameters pipeline produces a number of files:
| file type | in/out | description | URL format | format parameters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| aspcapField | out | ASPCAP stellar parameters (log g, Teff, [M/H], etc.), normalized spectra, and best fit spectra for all stars in a given field | APOGEE_REDUX/%s/%s/%s/%s//aspcapField-%04d.fits | APRED_VERS, APSTAR_VERS, ASPCAP_VERS, RESULTS_VERS, LOCATION_ID |
| aspcapStar | out | ASPCAP stellar parameters, normalized spectrum, and best-fit spectrum for a single star | APOGEE_REDUX/%s/%s/%s/%s/LOCATION_ID/aspcapStar-%s-%04d.fits | APRED_VERS, APSTAR_VERS, ASPCAP_VERS, RESULTS_VERS, RESULTS_VERS, LOCATION_ID |
