Science Data Challenge 3

SDC3a dataset

The complete SDC3a dataset consists of a visibility measurement set (MS) and imaging products derived from it, as well as ancillary data. Teams can decide whether they want to analyse the MS or the imaging products, depending on their pipelines. A document detailing the full description of the dataset can be found here.

Summarised details of the data products are as follows:

General 

• Observation track length HA = -2 to +2 hours

• Thermal noise equivalent 1000 [h]

• Field of View: one SKA1-Low pointing at RA, Dec = 0h, -30deg

Measurement set

• 7.5TB

• Integration time 10s

• Channel width 100kHz

• Frequency coverage 106 - 196MHz

Image cube

•  Weighting: natural and uniform

• Pixel size [arcsec]: 16x16 arcsec

• Number of pixels in RA/Dec 2048x2048

Ancillary data

• Synthesised beam and time-varying station beam at each frequency

• Station and antenna layouts

• Thermal noise model

For participants, access to the image and visibility data products, including the full SDC3a visibility dataset, is made available through their teams' allocated HPC facility resource. 

File download

SDC3a ancillary data can be found here, together with copies of the image datasets.

The files contained in the folder above can be downloaded directly via the command line using the following command:

wget --load-cookies /tmp/cookies.txt "https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&confirm=$(wget --quiet --save-cookies /tmp/cookies.txt --keep-session-cookies --no-check-certificate 'https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=FILEID' -O- | sed -rn 's/.*confirm=([0-9A-Za-z_]+).*/\1\n/p')&id=FILEID" -O FILENAME && rm -rf /tmp/cookies.txt

The FILEID and FILENAME of each file is contained in the wget_IDs file inside the folder.

Truth revealed!

The true EoR lightcone used for the full challenge dataset, and the corresponding power spectra can be found here.