Summer School Proceedings |
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The US National Virtual Observatory hosted its second Summer School on 6-15 September 2005, at the Aspen Meadows Resort in Aspen, Colorado. Thirty-nine participants worked with experienced NVO scientists and software developers to learn how to do astrophysics with the Virtual Observatory. Participants learned how to use the data discovery, data access, and high-performance computing capabilities of the Virtual Observatory along with VO analysis tools and utilities. A series of software tutorials provided hands-on experience in using VO tools and services. Participants then had the opportunity to work on self-motivated projects, building VO-enabled applications and doing VO-enabled research.
The US NVO Project greatly appreciates the sponsorship of NSF and NASA for the Summer School, and thanks the participants for their attention and interest in the Virtual Observatory.
Lectures and Software
Below is the master index to the contents of this distribution. Material is organized as lecture notes, either as slides (powerpoint, PDF), or as a continuous text (HTML). Many of the lectures have associated exercises and sample code, which can be used pedagogically, or as the start of a software project. In the listings below, the first column is the name of the lecture, the second is the author, then the last two columns are lecture notes and associated software, respectively.
In order to use the exercises and sample code the software bundle must be properly installed on your machine. To do this, you should follow the
Software installation instructions here
In addition to the exercises and sample code, there are some standard software packages in the distribution. These include astronomical software like Aladin, Mirage, TOPCat, VOPlot, as well as the web-server and development tools Apache Tomcat, Apache Axis, and Ant. These latter are installed as part of the software installation process. A full description of the software distribution is available.
Introduction
| Introduction to the NVO Summer School | McGlynn | PPT | PDF | |
| Using the VO Summer School Libraries | Graham/Greene | HTML |
Foundation Technologies for the Virtual Observatory
| Introduction to SQL | Nieto-Santisteban | HTML | Software |
| Introduction to XML | Krughoff | HTML | Software |
| XML Technologies | Plante | HTML | Software |
| Web Service Technologies | Graham | PPT | PDF | |
| Grid Computing | Williams | PPT | PDF | |
| Java Introduction | Plante | HTML | |
| Java Web Libraries | Krughoff | HTML | Software |
| Language Mini-tutorial: C# | Graham | HTML | Software |
| Language Mini-tutorial: IDL | Miller | HTML | Software |
| Language Mini-tutorial: IRAF | Fitzpatrick | HTML | Software |
| Language Mini-tutorial: Perl | McGlynn | HTML | Software |
| Language Mini-tutorial: PHP | Kwok | HTML | Software |
| Language Mini-tutorial:Python | Kwok | HTML | Software |
Virtual Observatory Technologies
| Protocols Overview | McGlynn | PPT | PDF | |
| Science Applications | Hanisch | PPT | PDF | |
| VOTables | Fitzpatrick | HTML | Software |
| Data Access Protocols | Tody | PPT | PDF | |
| SkyNodes | Greene | HTML | Software |
| ADQL | Plante | HTML | Software |
| Managing VO data and Process Flows | Graham | PPT | PDF | |
| UCDs | Williams | PPT | PDF | |
| Integrating Existing Tools into the VO: IRAF | Fitzpatrick | HTML | |
| Integrating Existing Tools into the VO: IDL | Miller | HTML | Software |
| Resource Metadata | Hanisch | PPT | PDF | |
| Publication and Registry Clients | Greene/Plante | PPT | PDF | |
| Publication and Registry Clients: Exercise | Greene/Plante | HTML | Software |
| Data and Service Discovery | Kwok | HTML | Java, Python, PHP |
| Dealing with Invalid Data | Kwok | HTML | |
| VOEvent | Seaman | PPT | PDF | |
| Exercise 1 - Building a VO client | Tody | HTML | Software |
| Exercise 2 - Building a VO Service | Greene | HTML | Install Software |
| Exercise 3 - Combining VO elements | Kwok | HTML | Software |
| What's on tap in the VO | Hanisch | PPT | PDF |
Using the Virtual Observatory in Astronomy Research
| Using the VO to Study the Relationship of Galaxies and Clusters | Miller | HTML | |
| Using the VO for Cross-correlations | Krughoff | HTML | |
| Object Classification Using the VO | McGlynn | PPT | PDF | |
| Using the Grid for Astronomical Data | Williams | PPT | PDF | |
| Data quality in the VO | DeYoung | PPT | PDF |
Student Projects
| HI Archives-Data Access and Tools | Kent | ||
| Spectrophotometry Client and Web Service | Valdes, Prema, Bochanski | HTML | |
| Finding Merging Pairs of Galaxies with the NVO | Allam, Tucker, Puerari, Gee, Loh | PPT | PDF | |
| Super Star Clusters in Nearby Galaxies | Whitmore, Hanley, Chan | PPT | PDF | |
| Creating/retrieving Simulated x-ray luminosity maps | Laurie Shaw | ||
| VOEvent | Mahabal, Seaman, Price, Garcia, Fhima, Allen | HTML | Software |
| A Pipeline for BIMA Polarization Data | Cortes | ||
| Galaxy Decomposition Service | Wadadekar, Bogosavljevic, Mahabal | HTML and PPT | PDF | |
| Crossmatch Between Local Database and SIAP Archives | Deneva, Manzato | PPT | PDF | |
| Cluster::Node | Muench, Strickler, Cargile | HTML | |
| HyperLeda and SDSS | Koposov, Brewer, Way | JPG | |
| VO Timeseries | Drake, Huber, Allsman, Vivas, Gasson | PPT | PDF | |
| WCS Fixer | Brewer, Koposov |
Software Index
This list is software especially developed for the Summer School. This distribution also contains other software, see here.
| ADQL Library | Software | This library provides simple translation capabilities between the XML and SQL-like representations of ADQL. |
| Basic Java examples | Software | This directory examples of simple Java programs. |
| Basic Sky Node | Software | This directory contains implementations of a simple server and client for a basic sky node. |
| Cone Client | Software | This directory contains a java implemention of a Cone Search client. |
| Cone Service | Software | An implementation of the Cone Search using a data file supplied with the summer school. |
| Cone Web Service | Software | This directory contains a build file for a client for an SDSS Cone search deployed as a web service. |
| Catalog Extractor | Software | This service tries to normalize the photometry in an image. |
| DAL Client | Software | A powerful library of routines for accessing Conesearch, Simple Image Access and soon Simple Spectral Access services. Users can query and retreive catalog and binary data in just a few method calls. |
| Full SkyNode (fullskynode) | Software | A simple server and client implementation of the full SkyNode implementation. However this version is not yet fully compatible with existing SkyNodes so that cross-correlations with other nodes may not be successful. |
| IVOA client | Software | Classes for parsing VOTables using the JAVOT and SAVOT libraries. |
| IVOA FITS | Software | Classes for using the IVOA FITS library. |
| IVOA Registry | Software | Classes to access VO registries. |
| K Giant | Software | A example application looking for K-giants using VO protocols. |
| NVO Registry | Software | Classes to search the VO registry at JHU. |
| Read FITS | Software | A simple example program for reading a FITS file. |
| Read VOTable | Software | A simple example prorgram for reading a VOTable. |
| SIAP Server | Software | Build a simple image access service. |
| SkyPortal client | Software | Build a client to the SkyPortal service. The SkyPortal in turn sends queries to various SkyNodes and sends the final response back to the user. |
| SkyPortal Upload Client | Software | This SkyPortal client uploads a table into the portal to do cross-correlations with the SkyNode catalogs. |
| URL Reader | Software | This program gives a simple example of a Java program reading data from a URL. |
| WESIX Client | Software | This directory includes a Web services client for the WESIX service. |
| XML Parser | Software | Example XML parsers. |
List of Faculty
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| McGlynn, Thomas | NASA GSFC |
| De Young, Dave | NOAO |
| Fitzpatrick, Michael | NOAO |
| Graham, Matthew | Caltech |
| Greene, Gretchen | STScI |
| Hanisch, Robert | STScI |
| Krughoff, Simon | University of Pittsburgh |
| Kwok, Shui | Keck Observatory |
| Miller, Chris | NOAO |
| Nieto-Santisteban, Maria | Johns Hopkins University |
| Plante, Ray | University of Illinois |
| Tody, Doug | NRAO |
| Williams, Roy | Caltech |
List of Participants
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Allam, Sahar | University of Wyoming |
| Allen, Steve | UCO/Lick Observatory |
| Allsman, Roberta | NOAO / LSST Project |
| Bochanski, John | University of Washington |
| Bogosavljevic, Milan | Caltech, Department of Astronomy |
| Brewer, Jeremy | University of Pittsburgh |
| Butterworth, Paul | NASA/GSFC |
| Cargile, Phillip | Vanderbilt University |
| Chan, (Ben) Hiu Pan | Caltech - IPAC (NED) |
| Cortes, Paulo | University of Illinois |
| Desert, Jean-Michel | Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (IAP) |
| Deneva, Julia | Cornell University |
| Drake, Andrew | Princeton/Caltech |
| Fhima, Avi | Gemini Observatory |
| Garcia, Jorge | Gemini Observatory |
| Gasson, David | National Optical Astronomy Observatory |
| Gee, Perry | University of California Davis Physics Dept. |
| Hanley, Christopher | Space Telescope Science Institute |
| Huber, Mark | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory |
| Kennefick, Julia | Physics Dept., University of Arkansas/Fayetteville |
| Kent, Brian | Cornell University |
| Koposov, Sergey | Sternberg Astronomical Institute |
| Lindroos, Johan | CSC-Scientific Computing ltd. SAMPO / ESO |
| Loh, Yeong | University of Colorado |
| Mahabal, Ashish | Caltech Astronomy |
| Manzato, Patrizia | INAF - Astronomical Observatory of Trieste |
| Muench, August | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics |
| Prema, Paresh | University of Cambridge |
| Price, Aaron | AAVSO |
| Puerari, Ivanio | INAOE |
| Seaman, Robert | National Optical Astronomy Observatory |
| Shaw, Laurie | Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge |
| Strickler, Rachel | San Francisco State University |
| Tucker, Douglas | Fermilab |
| Valdes, Francisco | NOAO |
| Vivas, Kathy | Centro de Investigaciones de Astronomia (CIDA) |
| Wadadekar, Yogesh | Space Telescope Science Institute |
| Way, Michael | NASA Ames Research Center |
| Whitmore, Brad | Space Telescope Science Institute |
Group Photo
click for larger version with names
(Missing from photo: Gretchen Greene and Patrizia Manzato)
References
VO Standards
- Conesearch
- Simple Image Access Protocol
- Resource Metadata
- VOResource v0.10
- VOTable 1.1
- VOTable Software - Links to parsers and documentation
Background Reading
The following documents provide general background information about the National Virtual Observatory and its relationship to the International Virtual Observatory Alliance. Additional VO-related documentation is available in the NVO document collection (http://www.us-vo.org/pubs/index.cfm) and the IVOA document collection (http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/).