The LIGO project is carrying out a limited distribution of data taken with the 40-meter prototype interferometer in 1994. While the instrument's sensitivity is too low to detect any astrophysical sources of gravitational radiation, it does provide insight into the nature of a real data stream, and the properties of the instrument noise. The data is available on a single Exabyte tape in 8500C format, and totals slightly under 6 Gbytes. The data is in the LIGO/VIRGO FRAME  format version 3.72 (this format supports internal compression, which is why the data now requires considerably less storage space than in previous FRAME versions).

The data may be obtained by signing an agreement with the LIGO project, regarding its use. A sample agreement is available here. Further information may be obtained from Gary Sanders.

Further information about the content and interpretation of this data set may be found in the GRASP manual (5.1MB, a PDF file that requires Acrobat Reader 3.0 or higher. If you have trouble reading the manual using Acrobat as a plug-in, click on the link with the shift key depressed to download the file, then read it locally using Acroread.). GRASP (Gravitational Radiation Analysis and Simulation Package) can be downloaded by anyone (it no longer requires a password for access). GRASP contains documented routines for reading, calibrating, and using the test data set. The GRASP Distribution Page contains links to the source code, documentation, and FAQs.