How can I quickly get a mosaic of my object?
If you've found this page from elsewhere in the wiki, you may wish go see the main Downloading data page with other possible flavors of this overall process of downloading Spitzer data.
I don't want any preamble or complete explanations, I just want a picture!
1. Go grab the Leopard/Spot software and install it (if you need to. Start up Leopard.
2. Go up to the "query" menu in the upper left of the window and 'search by position' to initiate a search, well, by celestial position. You will get a window like the figure below.
3. Type in "M51" (or another target of your choice) in the "target name". Click on "resolve the name."
4. When coordinates appear in the box, go down to the bottom of the box and click "none" under "IRS" (middle section).
5. Click ok. The cheetah/leopard will run as your computer contacts the SSC's computers.
6. If there are observations (there are some for M51), you will get a popup window with the programs listed. Click the box next to each program in the popup window and click ok. NOTE THAT not everything in the sky has been observed! Spitzer is not an all-sky mission; it's a pointed observatory, so someone has to have requested the region already for there to be data already in the system.
7. All AORs will be loaded into the Leopard window. Click on the white buttons on the far right (see figure below) to download the corresponding mosaic: 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, 8., 24, 70, or 160 microns. NOTE THAT if the data are not yet public, these white buttons will not appear. Note also that certain observation strategies result in strangely shaped and/or incomplete mosaics, and/or your target may be on the edge of one of the mosaics. If you would like to combine multiple observations into one, go back to the Downloading data page and pick "combining more than one mosaic."
Voila, you have a mosaic!
(However, note that this is a lossy-compressed version, and if you want to do, say, photometry on this, you should go grab the real mosaics -- see the main downloading data page and pick "getting the real mosaic.")
