Help page for 6dFGS query form

• 1st Select box: Enter the parameters to extract from the primary table in the text box. Parameters should be separated by commas, eg if the primary table is SPECTRA you could enter obsra,obsdec,z_helio,quality

  Enter * to select all parameters from the primary table.

  Parameters and tables are listed here.

• 1st From menu: choose primary table to query from drop down menu.

  Parameters and tables are listed here .

• 2nd Select box: Enter the parameters to extract from the secondary table in the text box. Parameters should be separated by commas, eg if the secondary table is SUPERCOS you could enter ra,dec,mag_1

  Parameters and tables are listed here.

• 2nd From menu: choose secondary table to query from drop down menu.

  Parameters and tables are listed here .

• Pairing menu: If querying two tables choose pairing option from drop down menu. Either only return matching objects in both tables or return all objects selected in primary and give secondary data where available. Tables are paired using the targetid parameter present in all tables.

• Where: enter constraints to place on query in text box. eg if SPECTRA is one of the tables being queried you could enter targetid > 0 and z > 0.1 and quality > 2

  If querying two tables you might need to precede the parameters with the relevant table name and a dot to uniquely specify it as some tables share the same names for parameters. eg spectra.targetid > 0 and z > 0.1 and quality > 2

  Parameters and tables are listed here.

• Order by: if you want to sort your output on a given parameter than enter its name in this text box, you can also specify asc (ascending, the default) or desc (descending).

  If querying two tables you might need to precede the parameter(s) with the relevant table name and a dot to uniquely specify it as some tables share the same names for parameters. eg twomass.ra desc. To sort on more than one parameter separate the clauses with commas eg spectra.targetid asc, spectra.quality desc

  Parameters and tables are listed here.

• RA, DEC, Equinox and radius: to perform a radial search enter values for RA, DEC and search radius in arcmin. Only objects with targetid > 0 are returned (objects with targetid=0 are not in the master target configuration file). The RA and Dec can be entered as sexagesimal (hh:mm:ss.s dd:mm:ss.s) or decimal degrees. Specify the equinox of the input coordinates, all coords are output as J2000.

• Output RA and DEC: check this box to output returned RAs and DECs as decimal degrees rather than sexagesimal.

• NROWS: enter the maximum number of rows returned in any HTML table. There is a hard-wired maximum of 100 as HTML tables are only really useful if the user is able to take-in the data by eye. If you want more rows you'll need to select CSV output and download the file. Be warned Netscape on Unix struggles with large HTML tables so reduce the load by only outputting the columns/rows you need. The query stops once when nrows has been returned even if the query would have produced more.

• FORMAT: choose HTML or a comma-separated value (CSV) file. If CSV is selected ALL rows (NOT just nrows) are returned by the query and written to the CSV file which is then made available for download.

• CSV compression: do you wish the CSV file to be gzipped?

• TAR: if you select yes, then the query is performed and a link to a TAR saveset of FITS files matching the returned objects is outputted to the browser after the HTML summary table. Note the number of rows written to the CSV and the resultant implications for the size of the TAR file. The size of the TAR file has been limited to 500 FITS files. NB you must specify CSV as the data format and provide a valid email address. For the TAR to work you must ensure that targetname is one of the returned parameters.

• EMAIL: if you've requested a TAR saveset of object FITS files then enter an email address.

• SQL query: Enter you SQL query in the box. An example is provided, delete this when adding your own.