CIAO

CIAO (also known as Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations) is a X-Ray telescope analysis software package for astronomical observation. CIAO focuses on the Chandra X-ray observatory. It contains a toolset used to analyze fits files and is commonly used in conjuction with DS9 and Sherpa, and focuses on data flexibility. 

Availability and Restrictions

Versions

CIAO is available on Pitzer and Owens Clusters. The versions currently available at OSC are:

Version Owens Pitzer Notes
4.14 X* X*  
* Current default version

You can use module spider ciao to view available modules for a given machine. Feel free to contact OSC Help if you need other versions for your work.

Publisher/Vendor/Repository and License Type

Harvard & Smithsonian (Public)

Usage

Usage on Owens

Set-up

To load the default version of CIAO module, use  module load ciao. For a list of all available CIAO versions and the format expected, type:  module spider ciao. To select a particular software version, use   module load ciao/version. For example, use  module load ciao/4.14 to load CIAO version 4.14. 

Running CIAO

The following command will start an interactive, command line version of CIAO:

ciaorun 

 type ciaorun help for a complete list of command line options.

The commands listed above will run CIAO on the login node you are connected to. As the login node is a shared resource, running scripts that require significant computational resources will impact the usability of the cluster for others. As such, you should not use interactive CIAO sessions on the login node for any significant computation. If your CIAO script requires significant time, CPU power, or memory, you should run your code via the batch system.

Batch Usage

When you log into owens.osc.edu you are actually logged into a Linux box referred to as the login node. To gain access to the multiple processors in the computing environment, you must submit your job to the batch system for execution. Batch jobs can request multiple nodes/cores and compute time up to the limits of the OSC systems. Refer to Queues and Reservations and Batch Limit Rules for more info. 

 

Usage on Pitzer

Set-up

To load the default version of CIAO module, use  module load ciao. For a list of all available CIAO versions and the format expected, type:  module spider ciao. To select a particular software version, use   module load ciao/version. For example, use  module load ciao/4.14 to load CIAO version 4.14. 

Running CIAO

The following command will start an interactive, command line version of CIAO:

ciaorun 

 type ciaorun help  for a complete list of command line options.

The commands listed above will run CIAO on the login node you are connected to. As the login node is a shared resource, running scripts that require significant computational resources will impact the usability of the cluster for others. As such, you should not use interactive CIAO sessions on the login node for any significant computation. If your CIAO script requires significant time, CPU power, or memory, you should run your code via the batch system.

Batch Usage

When you log into owens.osc.edu you are actually logged into a Linux box referred to as the login node. To gain access to the multiple processors in the computing environment, you must submit your job to the batch system for execution. Batch jobs can request multiple nodes/cores and compute time up to the limits of the OSC systems. Refer to Queues and Reservations and Batch Limit Rules for more info. 

Further Reading

Official documentation can be obtained from the CIAO's Website

References

  1. DS9
Supercomputer: 
Service: 
Fields of Science: