4.1 Input data

The data acquired at the APEX telescope are stored in a new file format, known as the MB-Fits format (for Multi-Beam FITS format, see Hatchell et al.) These files contain:

• the raw data as provided by the Frontend-Backend in use at the telescope
• data associated parameters: time of the observations, positions on the sky...
• a description of the complete Scan (eg. for a map: number of lines, steps between lines...)
• parameters of the receiver channels in the array: relative positions, relative gains

For the development of BoA, as long as no MB-FITS file with real observed data is available, we made use of Mambo files converted to the MB-FITS format. A dedicated Python module was written to read the content of a FITS file containing MAMBO data, and create a file with the same data plus the appropriate data associated parameters in the MB-FITS format. This module is able to convert any kind of MAMBO observations: Pointing, Focus, Skydip, On-Off, Raster map, as well as maps performed in the Fast Scanning mode. The files generated in the MB-FITS format can then be read into BoA with the appropriate method (see Section...).