Transcript Astrophysical Virtual Observatory Demo

Moving towards the
Virtual Observatory
Paolo Padovani, ST-ECF/ESO
AVO Science Manager
• The Virtual Observatory (VO)
• Europe and the VO: the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory
• AVO demo
July 19, 2004
P. Padovani, NEON Archive School
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Astronomy in the XXI century
Radical changes are needed!
 Huge surveys: 100M sources at <3k spectra/night 
>100 yr!
 Ever fainter sources: surpassed the identification limits
of 8 - 10m telescopes (Rmag ≈ 25)
 Huge data collections: downloading Sloan Digital Sky
Survey (SDSS) DR2 (~ 1/3 of total) images (5 Tb) 
~ 1 yr at 200 kb/s (ESO’s speed); catalogs (1.4 Tb) 
~ 3 months. On DVDs  ~ 1,000 of them. And
analysis?? (similar size for MACHO, 2MASS etc …)
 Ever increasing amount of data
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R ~ 25.5, VLT/FORS2, texp ~ 2.5 hrs (Szokoly et al. 2004)
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Astronomical Data Explosion
~ 100 Gb/night
P. Quinn
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ESO/ST-ECF Science
Archive Facility holdings
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The solution?
 Data mining to increase observing efficiency 
intelligent pre-selection
 Statistical identification to diminish need for a
spectrum  multi-wavelength, multi-parameter
analysis
 In-situ analysis to avoid download
 Easy and smart access to all archives and data
providers
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The name: Virtual Observatory
 An innovative, evolving system, which takes advantage of
astronomical data explosion
 It will allow users to interrogate multiple data centres in a
seamless and transparent way and to utilize at best
astronomical data
 Data analysis tools and models will be made more accessible
 It will allow new science by moving Astronomy beyond era of
“classical” identification by combining all available information
 Good communication  common language! Adoption and
definition of VO standards and protocols within the International
Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA: http://ivoa.net)
 And it’s all happening now …
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International Virtual Observatory Alliance
Mission
To facilitate the international coordination and
collaboration necessary for the development and
deployment of the tools, systems and
organizational structures necessary to enable the
international utilization of astronomical archives as
an integrated and interoperating virtual
observatory
SVO
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So what …?
 The VO will make life much easier for all astronomers, even those
not involved with colossal surveys, huge teams, and Tb of data!
 Web: all documents of the world inside your computer
 VO: all astronomical databases in the world inside your computer
 Concrete example:
 Find all the observations of a given source available in all
astronomical archives in a given wavelength range
 Tell me which ones are in raw or processed form
 Allow me to retrieve them
 If raw, give me access to the tools to reduce them on-the-fly
Very time consuming, if at all possible, at present
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Virtual Observatory in Europe
 AVO Project started November 2001
 Three-year, 5 M€, Phase A project, funded by the
European Commission (FP5) and six organizations: ESO,
ESA, AstroGrid, CNRS (CDS, TERAPIX), University Louis
Pasteur, JBO
 Manpower: ~ 17 FTEs/yr total, 50/50 EC and partners
 Next step: EURO-VO, implementation phase (some EC
funding secured, need more)
 AVO Home Page at http://www.euro-vo.org
 Science Working Group established two years ago to
provide scientific advice to AVO Project; implementation of
selected science cases through demonstrations
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The AVO Prototype
 Evolution of Aladin (Centre de Donnés astronomiques de
Strasbourg [CDS])
 Downloadable Java application
(http://www.euro-vo.org/twiki/bin/view/Avo/SwgDownload)
 Extensible toolset with plug-ins which allows easy access to
images, spectra, catalogues, with overlays, plotting facilities,
and a cross-correlation utility
 Still prototype but also research tool: first refereed, VO-based
scientific paper “Discovery of optically faint obscured quasars
with Virtual Observatory tools”, P. Padovani et al., A&A, in
press (astro-ph/0406056)
ST-ECF/ESO Press release May 28
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Summary
 The Virtual Observatory is happening, because it
has to!
 Handling and manipulating astronomical data
and tools residing at various locations across the
world will be made much easier than it is now
 Everybody will benefit!
 Tools are available now to help you with your
work
 And now, on to the demo!
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