These tips and tricks for using ORAC-DR for effective data reduction will be added to periodically. Check back often to learn new things about ORAC-DR!
Contents
Beginners
Use the -from X -to Y command-line arguments to reduce all observations, starting at observation X and ending with (and including) observation Y. Alternatively, compress this into one -list X:Y command-line argument.
Use the -onegroup command-line argument to reduce all of the supplied observations or files in a single group. Make sure that all of the observations should actually be reduced together! You'll probably blow up your computer if you try to reduce Orion and Galactic Centre data in a single group!
Set the ORAC_KEEP environment variable to 1 if you want to keep intermediate files that would normally be deleted. This is useful for tracking what's happened to your data.
Intermediate Users
When editing recipes and primitives, as most of the intermediate tips suggest you do, copy them to a local directory, edit your local copy, and set the ORAC_PRIMITIVE_DIR and/or ORAC_RECIPE_DIR environment variable to the directory containing your local copies.
ACSIS
To turn on flat-fielding, edit your recipe, adding FLATFIELD=1 to the line starting with _ITERATIVE_GROUP_PRODUCTION_.
To rebin your cubes to a specific velocity resolution, add REBIN=0.1 (e.g. to rebin to a 0.1 km/s resolution) to the line starting with _ITERATIVE_GROUP_PRODUCTION_. Multiple resolutions are supported by supplying a comma-separated string (e.g. REBIN=1.0,0.1). If your recipe does not call _ITERATIVE_GROUP_PRODUCTION_, add the _REBIN_VELOCITY_SCALE_ primitive to your recipe with a PIXELSCALE=0.1,1.0 argument (obviously changing the velocity resolutions to whatever resolution you want!)