ALADIN

Towards an Interactive Atlas of the Digitized Sky

F. Bonnarel, Ph. Paillou, F. Ochsenbein, M. Crézé
Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg - CDS,
Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg, France
D. Egret
IPAC, Mail 100-22, Caltech, Pasadena CA 91125, U.S.A.

Abstract:

The purpose of the ALADIN project is to develop an interactive atlas of the digitized sky allowing the user to visualize on his/her workstation digitized images of any part of the sky, to superimpose entries from astronomical catalogs or user data files, and to interactively access the related data and information from the SIMBAD database for all known objects in the field.
The software architecture of ALADIN is based on the client-server philosophy. Each set of stored data (astronomical catalogs, SIMBAD database, and image pixels) will be accessed through a dedicated server.

We expect this new tool to be specifically useful for a multi-spectral approach (searching for counterparts of sources detected at various wavelengths), and for a number of applications related to the quality control and the cross-identification of observational data.

Keywords: atlas, survey, database, server, Aladin, Simbad

question@simbad.u-strasbg.fr