Swift data conforms to the HEASARC standards. There are three levels of data that are archived.
Scientists generally need to start their analysis from Level 1 products only if there have been improvements in the telescope calibration since the most recent data reprocessing, or if non-standard data screening is intended. Images are stored in raw detector coordinates. Event data are unscreened and recorded in raw detector coordinates. Level 1 data are merely the telemetry and TDRSS data after it has been converted to FITS format files.
It is envisaged that most scientists will start their analysis from the Level 2 products. The data reduction pipeline has been performed on images and event tables. Images are stored in J2000 sky coordinates (RA,Dec), although grism data are also stored in corrected detector coordinates. Exposure maps for each individual image are available. Columns containing corrected detector and sky coordinates have been populated. Event data have been screened for standard bad times, e.g. SAA passage and Earth limb avoidance.
Level 3 data products are intended to be quick-and-dirty representations of many of the products that the scientist would routinely create during their analysis; e.g. time-averaged images, light curves, spectra, etc. Since they are created non-interactively they are not intended as publishable products but as useful guides to the scientist. The number and type of Level 3 products in the archive will be determined by the confidence in any non-interactive burst detection and/or the time since the burst. More Level 3 products will populate the archive at an early stage if the burst has been identified during standard pipeline processing. Products will take longer to arrive if interactive analysis is required to identify the burst.
Eleonora Troja 2016-08-08