Multiwavelength Astronomy School - VO Session (Paris, 09 July 2009)

These wiki pages contain information and links for the Virtual Observatory Session of the Black hole Universe, 1st School on Multiwavelength Astronomy

What is the VO ? - The Virtual Observatory (VO) aims to provide a research environment that will open up new possibilities for scientific research based on data discovery, efficient data access, and interoperability. The vision is of global astronomy archives connected via the VO to form a multiwavelength digital sky that can be searched, visualized, and analyzed in new and innovative ways.

The VO session at the Black hole Universe, 1st School on Multiwavelength Astronomy aims to provide a brief introduction to the VO, and a hands-on session using VO tools for data discovery -- Search for images, catalogues and spectra for a given astronomical object, and Cross match and visualise multiwavelength catalogues.

Presentation

'Introduction to the Virtual Observatory' VO_intro.pdf

Hands-on session

1. Search for images, catalogues and spectra for a given astronomical object - using the galaxy M51 as an example

2. Cross match and visualise multiwavelength catalogues - to search for ULX and X-ray binary sources

Tools

The following VO tools will be used in the hands-on session. The participants are recommended to install these before the session.

(probably wont work with a proxy...)

• TOPCAT
• Aladin (With proxy launch with java -Xmx1024M -Dhttp.proxyHost=gwebproxy.univ-paris7.fr -Dhttp.proxyPort=3128 -jar Aladin.jar)
• VOSpec (No install usually required. With proxy download the .jar file and launch with java -Dhttp.proxyHost=gwebproxy.univ-paris7.fr -Dhttp.proxyPort=3128 -jar VOSpec_5.1.jar)
• advanced: VODesktop (probably wont work with a proxy...)

For more VO tools see the EuroVO list of software and the IVOA list of VO tools

More Training Materials

Wiki pages from the 4-day EuroVO AIDA VO School (April 2009)

EuroVO Scientific Workflows (step by step examples)

CDS tutorials and documentation

SIMBAD : http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/~allen/AIDA/Simbad.html

VIZIER : Basic: http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/~allen/AIDA/VizierBasic.html Advanced: http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/~allen/AIDA/VizierAdvanced.html

ALADIN: Manual: http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/~allen/AIDA/AladinManual.pdf

AstroGrid Python Scripting Information and worked examples

http://www.astrogrid.org/wiki/Help/IntroScripting/AstrogridPython

Links

EuroVO - European Virtual Observatory

AstroGrid - AstroGrid, UK.

IVOA - The International Virtual Observatory Alliance

Tutors

Mark G. ALLEN, and Thomas BOCH (Observatoire de Strasbourg, FRANCE)

-- MarkAllen - 10 July 2009