The US National Virtual Observatory hosted its second Summer School on 6-14 September 2006, at the Aspen Meadows Resort in Aspen, Colorado. Forty 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.
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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 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
| Welcome and Introduction | McGlynn |
| Software library installation and overview | Graham |
Foundation Technologies for the Virtual Observatory
| Introduction to SQL | McGlynn |
| Introduction to XML | Greene |
| Scripting languages: Python, IRAF, IDL | Kwok, Fitzpatrick, Miller |
| Advanced XML: Schema, Xpath, XQuery, XSL | Plante |
| VOTables | Fitzpatrick |
| Accessing Web Services | Graham |
| Building Web Services | Graham |
| Grid Computing | Williams |
| Development languages: Java, C, C# | Plante/Greene |
Virtual Observatory Technologies
Using the Virtual Observatory in Astronomy Research
| VO Science Goals and Discussion | De Young |
| Using the VO to Study Clusters of Galaxies | Miller |
| VO science with cross-correlations | Krughoff |
| Introduction to OpenSkyQuery | Nieto-Santisteban and Williams |
| Exercise 7: Correlating Catalogs on the Web | Miller |
Student Projects
| AEGIServer | Rosario |
| Astronomy Workflow Editor | Rogers |
| Theory Skynode | Wagner |
| Fossil Groups | Santos/Tamura |
| Image Comparer | Aspin |
| ANCHORS | Spitzbart |
| Deep QSO Survey | Floyd/Muench |
| Shape of Galaxy Rotation Curves | Catinella |
| Spectra Build SSA/SDSS QSO Spectra | Kimball/McCusker |
| Datascope for the People | Raddick |
| SIAP Server/Client Platform | Skoda |
| SPM3 Catalog/Magellanic Clouds Exploration | Viera |
Software
Software and installation instructions here
Faculty
- Thomas McGlynn, NASA GSFC (chair)
- Dave De Young, NOAO
- Michael Fitzpatrick, NOAO
- Matthew Graham, Caltech
- Gretchen Greene, STScI
- Robert Hanisch, STScI
- Brian Kent, Cornell University
- Simon Krughoff, University of Pittsburgh
- Shui Kwok, Keck Observatory
- Chris Miller, NOAO
- Ray Plante, University of Illinois
- Doug Tody, NRAO
- Roy Williams, Caltech
Participants
- Jacob Albretsen, Brigham Young University
- Colin Aspin, Gemini Obssevatory
- Brian Brondel, Indiana University
- Douglas Burke, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
- Barbara Catinella, Arecibo Observatory
- Luca Cortese, Cardiff University
- Joseph DePasquale, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- Walter dos Santos Jr., Instituto de Astronomia Geofisica e Ciencias Atmosfericas - Universidade de Sao Paulo (IAG-USP)
- Iranderly Fernandes, Laboratorio Nacional de Astrofisica
- David Floyd, STScI
- Oliver Fraser, University of Washington
- Steven Gibson, NAIC Arecibo Observatory
- Norman Hill, Canadian Astronomy Data Centre
- Lilit Hovhannisyan, Byurakan Observatory
- Amy Kimball, University of Washington
- Michael Koss, University of Maryland/Goddard Space Flight Center
- Howard Lanning, National Optical Astronomy Observatory/AURA
- Don Lindler, Sigma Space Corporation
- Kevin Lindsay, Space Telescope Science Institute
- Omar Lopez-Cruz, INAOE-Tonantzintla
- Karen Masters, Harvard-Smithsonian CfA
- Kelly McCusker, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- Melinda Mello, NRAO
- August Muench, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
- Tara Murphy, University of Sydney
- Nathaniel Paust, STScI
- Paresh Prema, Institute of Astronomy University of Cambridge
- Ivanio Puerari, INAOE - Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica y Electronica
- Jordan Raddick, Johns Hopkins University
- Anthony Rogers, Space Telescope Science Institute
- David Rosario, University of Virginia/University of California-Santa Cruz/UCO-Lick Observatory
- Rafael Santos, Associate Laboratory for Computing and Applied Mathematics The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) Brazil -- see RafaelSantos personal information and ideas on the students' project.
- Rita Sinha, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) INDIA
- Petr Skoda, Astronomical Institute Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
- Brad Spitzbart, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
- Christopher Springob, Naval Research Lab
- Takayuki Tamura, ISAS/JAXA
- Katherine Vieira Rosa, Yale University
- Richard Wagner, Laboratory for Computational Physics - University of California, San Diego
- Phillip Warner, NOAO