Related papers: Running a distributed virtual observatory: US Virt…
Just as the astronomical "Time Domain" is a catch-phrase for a diverse group of different science objectives involving time-varying phenomena in all astrophysical regimes from the solar system to cosmological scales, so the "Virtual…
Virtual Observatory (VO) is a collection of interoperating data archives and software tools. Taking advantages of the latest information technologies, it aims to provide a data-intensively online research environment for astronomers all…
With some telescopes standing still, now more than ever simple access to archival data is vital for astronomers and they need to know how to go about it. Within European Virtual Observatory (VO) projects, such as AIDA (2008-2010), ICE…
The advent of the Virtual Observatory (VO) concept signals a pradigm shift in the way astronomy will be done in the era of information abundance and ubiquitous networking. Small telescopes will be playing a number of essential roles in this…
In the Virtual Observatory (VO), the Registry provides the mechanism with which users and applications discover and select resources -- typically, data and services -- that are relevant for a particular scientific problem. Even though the…
The increase of astronomical data produced by a new generation of observational tools poses the need to distribute data and to bring computation close to the data. Trying to answer this need, we set up a federated data and computing…
The singular way of scheduling at major observatories has favored certain types of astronomy. This has led to the discrimination of certain types of observations which could not be accommodated. It is the goal of future operations to open…
The mining of Virtual Observatories (VOs) is becoming a powerful new method for discovery in astronomy. Here we report on the development of SkyDOT (Sky Database for Objects in the Time domain), a new Virtual Observatory, which is dedicated…
In the last years we have witnessed a dramatic change in the research infrastructures: Advances in communication networks, computational resources and data storage devices are fostering new and more efficient science. In this new scenario,…
The Virtual Observatory Registry is a distributed directory of information systems and other resources relevant to astronomy. To make it useful, facilities to query that directory must be provided to humans and machines alike. This article…
The European Virtual Observatory Euro-VO has been coordinating European VO activities through a series of projects co-funded by the European Commission over the last 15 years. The bulk of VO work in Europe is ensured by the national VO…
Astronomers are good at sharing data, but poorer at sharing knowledge. Almost all astronomical data ends up in open archives, and access to these is being simplified by the development of the global Virtual Observatory (VO). This is a great…
Nowadays, many scientific areas share the same need of being able to deal with massive and distributed datasets and to perform on them complex knowledge extraction tasks. This simple consideration is behind the international efforts to…
In the Virtual Observatory era, where we intend to expose scientists (or software agents on their behalf) to a stream of observations from all existing facilities, the ability to access and to further interpret the origin, relationships,…
Modern scientific data mainly consist of huge datasets gathered by a very large number of techniques and stored in very diversified and often incompatible data repositories. More in general, in the e-science environment, it is considered as…
The proper scientific analysis of a large amount of stellar spectra requires certain capabilities of the analysing tool (e.g. precise semi-automatic fitting for normalisation of the continuum or line-list assisted measurement of spectral…
The Science Operation Department is composed of Astronomers, Telescope Instruments Operators (TIO) and Data Handling Administrators (DHAs). Their main goal is to produce top-quality astronomical data by operating a suite of 9 telescopes, 14…
Here we review some of the main issues related to multi-wavelength source identification and characterization, with particular emphasis on the field of X-ray surveys carried out over the last years. This complex and time-consuming process…
Systematic exploration of the observable parameter space, covered by large digital sky surveys spanning a range of wavelengths, will be one of the primary modes of research with a Virtual Observatory (VO). This will include searches for…
Access to astronomical data through archives and VO is essential but does not solve all problems. Availability of appropriate software for analyzing the data is often equally important for the efficiency with which a researcher can publish…