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Summary

The Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA) search interface provided search and download capability for HLA products. In addition to a table of search results that supported sorting and filtering, preview images were available in an album view, links to interactive image displays allowed for quick-look analysis, and a download cart permitted selection of specific data products to retrieve.

Retirement - No Earlier Than January 2026.

The HLA search interface has ceased active development and will be retired in calendar year 2026.  An exact date will be communicated in the MAST newsletter and updated on the HLA interface itself before the application is retired. The HLA data products will remain in MAST, only the HLA search interface itself will be retired.

Suggested Alternatives

The HLA datasets are available in two modern, alternative search applications. They can be found as stand-alone datasets within the  MAST Portal cross-mission search interface, where you can query on Mission = "HLA" to specifically include these datasets in your search criteria.

They will also be made available in our modern HST Search interface prior to HLA retirement.  This can be useful for anyone who wants to search and download standard HST pipeline datasets and any derived HLA products at the same time.  The HST Search interface provides search and download capability specific to standard HST datasets.  Unlike the Portal, you can not search directly for HLA products using the HST Search interface. However, when you select HST datasets and proceed to choose which products you want to download, HLA products that were derived using the selected HST datasets will also be available.  Other advanced Hubble products, like HAP, HASP, and HSLA, are available in the same way.  The HLA data products will appear under an "HLA" menu item within the Download Overlay's File Category selector.

NOTE: The links to the interactive displays that allowed for pan, zoom, intensity scaling, and overlays of sources from catalogs may not be available in these alternative search interfaces. The functionality that the interactive displays provided will be served by the Jdaviz tool, once work to support HLA products is completed.

Historical Screenshots of the HLA Interface

Below are some screenshots to place its functionality in context.

A screenshot showing the landing page of the HLA interface, mostly containing text describing what's available and links to documentation and resources.
The HLA landing page that contained news about the latest updates, contents of the HLA, and links to documentation and additional resources.
Screenshot showing an example search result table using M101. Columns of metadata are available, that can be sorted and filtered on.
An example search result table after searching on the target "M101".  The columns of the search result table were sortable and filterable.  Links within the search result table provided access to interactive image displays, quick download access to products, and the abstract for the porposal associated with the data. 
A screenshot showing the HLA album view, which showed preview thumbnails for each HLA dataset in your search result in a grid.
The HLA's album view dispalyed image previews for each dataset in your search result in a grid.  Links to interactive image displays and to download calibrated science products were included in each preview, allowing for browsing based on the visual previews to complement the more traditional table of metadata search results.
A screenshot showing the footprint display within the HLA that was based on Flash. Footprints are shown over a sky background in different colors based on instrument.
The HLA's footprint view used different colors for the Hubble instruments and helped users understand the complicated sky coverage in many fields.  The footprints were fully integrated with the inventory and images views: hovering over footprints highlighted the corresponding table rows and vice versa, filtering the table simultaneously filtered the footprints, and clicking on the footprint image selected all the images under the cursor.

 

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