Volume 7, Issue 2
April 1998
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INTRODUCTION
Changes in FITS are not normally considered "ADC news", but the first major
revision of the FITS standard since 1995 has now been released in draft form.
The FITS technical panel needs your comments on the drafted revisions before
they are finalized. For this reason, we've included an article to tell you
where to find the document and how to submit your comments.
In recent months there have been noteworthy enhancements to our ADC data
search service and our new data access tools (i.e., the ADC data viewer,
Catseye, and IMPReSS). These are detailed in articles in this issue.
These and other ADC service enhancements will also be detailed in display
papers in Session 38 (Scheduled for Tuesday, June 9) of the upcoming AAS
meeting in San Diego, California. If you'll be attending that meeting, stop
by and look at our papers.
- James E. Gass (Raytheon STX), Editor
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Call for Comments on Revised FITS Standard
James E. Gass (Raytheon STX)
As many of our subscribers make extensive use of the FITS (Flexible Image
Transport System) standard for data exchange, we'd like to bring to your
attention the call for comments on the a new draft standard for FITS. The
NASA/Science Office of Standards and Technology (NOST) has announced the
availability of Draft Standard 100-1.2, Definition of the Flexible Image
Transport System (FITS) for review and comments.
This draft standard is a major revision to version 1.1 of the FITS standard,
adopted in 1995. This standard is being developed by a NOST-sponsored
Technical Panel. Electronic copies of the draft standard and a list of the
significant changes can be found on the NOST FITS web site at
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/. The draft standard is also available via FTP at
ftp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/fits/documents/nost_1.2/.
The FITS Technical Panel will review and respond to all comments. The Panel
will either incorporate the substance of a comment into the Standard, or it
will instead provide the reasons for not doing so and describe any revision to
the Standard motivated by the comment. After the panel has completed review of
and responded to all comments, the final version will be submitted to NOST for
certification. Upon certification, the final version number will be 2.0. It
will then be submitted to IAU Commission 5 for formal acceptance as the IAU
standard.
Comments on the new standard should be posted to the email distribution list
at fitsbits@fits.cv.nrao.edu. Dr. William Pence, a member of the technical
panel, will oversee the reading, discussion, and panel response to all
comments. All comments should be submitted by July 15, 1998.
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Enhancements to ADC/ADF Data Access Tools
Richard A. White, Cynthia Cheung (NASA GSFC)
Kirk Borne, Ed Shaya, Jim Blackwell, Vincent Kargatis (Raytheon STX)
Jeff de La Beaujardiere (UMBC)
In the last ADC Newsletter, we announced the initial public
release of several Web-based tools for subsetting and sorting the ADC
catalogs (ADC Viewer) and for making scatter plots (Catseye). In
addition, the new IMPReSS facility allows accessing NASA mission logs,
creates plot overlays of observation footprints, and aids in the retrieval
of archived data and browse images. To access these tools, see their Web page
at http://adf.gsfc.nasa.gov/adf/visualization. Since this initial release, we
have made some improvements and several more are imminent. Here are the most
notable ones.
I: For the ADC_VIEWER,
1) There is a new top page that we believe is easier to use.
It allows accessing catalogs through three different routes: by
ADC catalog number (for the aficionados), by searching for a
word or several words in the ReadMe files, or by browsing the
titles arranged by category. The latter two methods will bring
up the ReadMe file so that users can get a brief summary of
the holdings in that catalog group.
2) We have extensively changed the wording and added clearer
instructions everywhere that users appeared to be having
difficulties.
3) A toolbar on the top of every page has been added to aid
navigation between the Viewer, Catseye, and IMPReSS.
4) In the output of the user created table, spaces are always
present between components in the RA and DE fields.
By the second week of May, we expect to have made the following
additional improvements to the ADC Viewer.
5) Previously, the three fields RAh RAm RAs were combined into a
single field called RA and the four fields DE- DEd DEm DEs were
combined into a single field called DE. This enabled requests
for a range in RA and DE. Now this logic has been extended to
all columns of similar structure included in the tables, such
as fields of RA2000 and DE2000 etc.
6) In some archived catalogs, the minus sign is kept as a
separate field of A1 format. These are now always combined with
the appropriate field.
7) Spaces exist between all fields in the download version of
the ADC_VIEWER even if the catalog in the archive has none.
II: For Catseye plotting tool:
1) The axes now go plus and minus 5% beyond the specified range
so that symbols are not lost in the axes or tick marks. A light
dashed-lined box delimits the user specified region. If no
region is specified, as is the case in the first rendering, the
dashed lines are placed at the minimum and maximum values of the
plotted points.
2) A request for logarithmic plotting of an array with any
negative values is ignored and reverts to linear.
III: For IMPReSS:
1) Name resolution has been included so that one can begin the
search for mission data with either the coordinates or the name
of the target. Both NED and Simbad are queried for the name
resolution.
2) HST/WFPC-1, SAX-NFI, and GINGA have been added to the list
of missions covered by the IMPReSS facility.
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New Options in Searching the ADC Data Collection
James E. Gass (Raytheon STX)
The ADC staff periodically analyzes the logs of the ADC web site with an eye
to making it more useful and user-friendly. One focus for analysis are the
queries to the data collection search engine. In particular, a review of those
queries that have zero matches can be revealing. Some of these queries point
out information that we should consider adding to our collection or ways that
our search capability might be improved.
Earlier this year we improved our search service. We added new options to the
form used to search the descriptions of our catalogs and journal data tables.
By taking advantage of the structure of the CDS/ADC standard document format,
we added options to search against the lead author's last name and the year
of publication. These can be searched by themselves or in any combination
with the other and/or a text search of the entire document. As one more
option, users can now select whether all terms must be matched (the default)
or at least one term must match (a Boolean "or" operation). See
http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/adc_collections.html#search for this form.
To help users easily refine their search terms, the search results page now
includes the search form with the terms as entered. We feel that these modest
changes give our users much greater control in defining and refining their
searches.
Follow-on reviews of the search logs have shown that these new options can
hold pitfalls for unwary users. Specific, but slightly erroneous queries have
caused some users to miss their intended target. Here's an example: the query
"Lead Author = Argelander, Year = 1853, Text = Bonner Durchmusterung" would
return 0 matches. The problem in this case is that the year of publication is
wrong. If the query is simplified to "Lead Author = Argelander", one would
get an exact match on the BD.
Here's a suggestion: if your search query results in zero matches, try again
with a less specific search. One quick way to do this is to switch to the
"Find Items with at Least One Search Word" option. If your search still does
not turn up the data you want, try different terms, use your browser's "find"
command on the holdings list, http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/adc_holdings1.html,
or ask for assistance by e-mail to help@adc.astro.umd.edu.
More improvements are in the works. We will soon allow users to search our
web pages, instead of just the data descriptions. We are also expanding our
"external" data category by adding more descriptions and links to data sources
at other institutions. The ADC staff is also looking at alternative search
engines that might offer advantages over the current one.
The ADC web site provides convenient access to ADC data sets and information.
Our staff will continue to explore ways to further improve the services
available at http://adc.astro.umd.edu/.
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Newly Archived Catalogs and Journal Tables
Gail L. Schneider (Raytheon STX)
The following catalogs and journal tables are currently available from the
ADC. In addition to our major journals, we have publications from other
journals.
We would like to thank the CDS, AAS and individual authors for making many of
the listed catalogs and journal tables available for our archival.
See http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/acq_new_updated.html#new_list for a hypertext
version of this article containing direct links to each catalog and journal
table listed.
NEW CATALOGS AND JOURNAL TABLES
III. Spectroscopic Data
ID# Abbreviated Title (First Author, Year)
3199A Observed Periods of Ap and Bp stars (Catalano+ 1998)
3200A Catalogue of [Fe/H] (Cayrel de Strobel+, 1997)
3201 Pulkovo Spectrophotometric Catalog (Alekseeva+ 1997)
VII. Non-Stellar and Extended Objects
7199 Surface Photometries of the Milky Way (Schlosser+ 1997)
7203 Las Campanas Redshift Survey (Shectman+ 1996)
7206 General Photometry of Galaxies (Prugniel+ 1998)
VIII. Radio Sources
8043 Radio survey of clusters of galaxies (Andernach+ 1978)
IX. High-Energy Data
9020 The Fourth BATSE Burst Catalog (Paciesas+ 1998)
Astronomy and Astrophysics
J/A+A/327/952 Centaurus cluster velocities (Stein+ 1997)
J/A+A/329/101 Masses of Pleiades members (Raboud+ 1998)
J/A+A/329/219 28SiO in O-rich evolved stars (Pardo+ 1998)
J/A+A/329/579 uvby photometry of theta CrB (Fabregat+ 1998)
J/A+A/329/721 Sensitivity indicators of Fraunhofer lines (Shenimova 1998)
J/A+A/329/943 F & G solar neighbourhood stars new ages (Ng+ 1998)
J/A+A/330/108 ROSAT detected quasars. II. (Yuan+ 1998)
J/A+A/330/423 Early-type galaxies kinematics (Rampazzo+ 1998)
J/A+A/330/505 Carbon stars IR emission (Blanco+ 1998)
J/A+A/330/515 RR Lyrae parallaxes & proper motions (Fernley+ 1998)
J/A+A/330/676 IRC+10216 Silicon and sulfur chemistry (Willacy+ 1998)
J/A+A/331/70 JKVI photometry of NGC 6553 stars (Guarnieri+ 1998)
J/A+A/331/81 Hyades membership (Perryman+ 1998)
J/A+A/331/581 Rotation and activity in field M dwarfs (Delfosse+ 1998)
J/A+A/331/633 IUE spectra of lambda Boo stars (Solano+ 1998)
J/A+A/331/949 Wolf-Rayet & O-star runaways kinematics (Moffat+ 1998)
Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
J/A+AS/123/529 UV-excess quasar candidates around NGC 450 (Gosset+ 1997)
J/A+AS/126/401 M 31 Cepheids periods (Magnier+ 1997)
J/A+AS/126/413 21cm radio continuum survey. II. (Reich+ 1997)
J/A+AS/126/479 NIR photometry of IRAS sources. III (Garcia-Lario+, 1997)
J/A+AS/126/503 Southern spiral galaxies scaleheights (Ma+ 1997)
J/A+AS/126/509 HS 47.5/22: X-ray catalogue (Molthagen+ 1997)
J/A+AS/126/519 Kinematical data on early-type galaxies. III. (Simien+ 1997)
J/A+AS/127/101 Galaxies in the "zone of avoidance". V. (Seeberger+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/117 Kinematics of galaxies (Prugniel+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/119 Radio continuum study of the MC (Filipovic+, 1998)
J/A+AS/127/167 V,I CCD photometry of NGC 6528 (Richtler+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/181 H2O maser sources new detections (Han+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/185 SiO masers in OH/IR stars, proto-PN and PN (Nyman+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/201 Variations of Ap stars in the Geneva system (Manfroid+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/207 UBV(RI)c photometry of active stars. VII. (Cutispoto 1998)
J/A+AS/127/217 Absorption spectrum of the QSO PKS2126-158 (D'Odorico+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/251 Giants and supergiants ROSAT data (Huensch+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/277 Rotation and binary rate among giant F stars (Kunzli+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/295 Stark broadening of Kr II lines (Popovic+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/409 New nearby dwarf galaxy candidates list (Karachentseva+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/421 ==>catalogs/3/3199/
J/A+AS/127/423 VI photometry of Westerlund 1 and 2 (Piatti+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/445 Gamma-ray loud blazars optical monitoring. II. (Raiteri+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/463 Crux region redshifts (Fairall+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/471 NGC 6380 and Terzan 12 VI photometry (Ortolani+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/521 Very luminous IRAS galaxies spectra. (Wu+ 1998)
J/A+AS/127/543 Stark broadening of S V lines (Dimitrijevic+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/19 Variable stars in 47 Tuc fields 104A-E (Kaluzny+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/29 X-ray/optical observations of A8-G2V stars (Piters+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/35 New Sample of OH/IR stars (Sjouwerman+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/67 BVR photometry of Abell 85 (Slezak+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/131 UBV photometry of NGC 2323 (Claria+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/139 ubvy photometry of CR Cas (Clement+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/153 Revised GB/GB2 sample of radio sources (Machalski 1998)
J/A+AS/128/179 Precision meteor orbits (Betlem+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/203 Stark broadening of Mn, Ga & Ge multiplets (Popovic+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/245 Photometry of chemically peculiar stars (Adelman+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/251 uvby photometry of V3903 Sgr (Vaz+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/255 Proper motions in M 11 (Su+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/265 ubvy-beta photometry of CP2 stars (Masana+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/309 ubvy,beta photometry of CarOB1 and CarOB2 stars
(Kaltcheva 1998)
J/A+AS/128/315 BVRI photometry of blazars (Jia+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/331 X-ray Sources in Molecular Clouds (Danner 1998)
J/A+AS/128/359 Stark broadening of Ca IX and Ca X lines (Dimitrijevic+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/361 Vacuum ultraviolet emission band systems of N2 (Roncin+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/409 Wavelength calibration (De Cuyper+ 1998)
Astronomical Journal
J/AJ/87/1165 Reddening Maps derived from HI and Galaxy Counts
(Burstein+ 1982)
J/AJ/108/1016 Kinematics of local RR lyrae stars. I. (Layden, 1994)
J/AJ/113/1711 RR Lyrae in NGC 6171 (Clement+ 1997)
J/AJ/113/1939 VLA Survey of Hercules cluster. I. (Dickey 1997)
J/AJ/114/198 The Monoceros R2 Cluster (Carpenter+ 1997)
J/AJ/114/341 Type II Cepheids (Gonzalez+ 1997)
J/AJ/114/699 Spectrophotometry in open clusters (Clampitt+ 1997)
J/AJ/114/850 Errors in the FK5 Catalog (Stone 1997)
J/AJ/114/1458 The Carina Dwarf (Mighell 1997)
J/AJ/114/1471 Fornax Globular 3 (Smith+ 1997)
J/AJ/114/1488 Globulars in M31 (Holland+ 1997)
J/AJ/114/2822 Seeing Tests for NPOI Project (Hutter+ 1997)
J/AJ/114/1190 NSV 09295: A double-mode RR Lyrae (Garcia-Melendo+ 1997)
J/AJ/115/708 Radial Velocities in the Field of M15 (Drukier+ 1998)
Astrophysical Journal
J/ApJ/382/636 Rosseland mean free-free Gaunt factor (Itoh+ 1991)
J/ApJ/483/826 BVI CCD photometry of Berkeley 17 (Phelps 1997)
J/ApJ/484/394 AX Mon photometry and UV spectra (Elias+ 1997)
J/ApJ/488/224 4.85 GHz fluxes of H II regions (Kuchar+ 1997)
J/ApJ/490/328 "Mass Discrepancy" for Massive Stars (Burkholder+ 1997)
J/ApJ/491/L31 TMGS star positions (Garzon+ 1997)
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
J/ApJS/63/661 Relativistic Free-Free Gaunt Factor (Nakagawa+ 1987)
J/ApJS/74/291 Relativistic Free-Free Gaunt Factor. II. (Itoh+ 1990)
J/ApJS/111/163 Einstein X-ray survey of galaxies. I. (Burstein+ 1997)
J/ApJS/111/377 H{gamma} & H{delta} absorption features (Worthey+ 1997)
J/ApJS/111/445 Spectra of normal stars in the K band (Wallace+ 1997)
J/ApJS/113/121 Optically thick winds from degenerate dwarfs. I. (Kato 1997)
J/ApJS/112/487 Planetary nebulae classification (Soker 1997)
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
J/PASP/109/759 Rotational Velocities of Intermediate-mass MS Stars
(Wolff+ 1997)
J/PASP/109/849 Probing the LHS Catalog (Gizis+ 1997)
J/PASP/109/977 VI photometry of CG Muscae (Layden+ 1997)
J/PASP/109/883 Globular metallicity scale. I. (Rutledge+ 1997)
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
J/MNRAS/273/411 Multifrequency fluxes of 280 pulsars (Lorimer+ 1995)
J/MNRAS/287/293 BR photometry of EUVE sources (Maoz+ 1997)
J/MNRAS/283/367 Redshift survey in Per-Psc and Pav-Ind (di Nella+ 1996)
J/MNRAS/289/225 SMC HI shells velocities (Staveley-Smith+ 1997)
J/MNRAS/289/263 Galaxy clusters from the APM galaxy survey (Dalton+ 1997)
J/MNRAS/291/261 Methanol maser of IRAS-selected sources (Walsh+ 1997)
Acta Astronomica
J/other/AcA/46.389 OGLE miscellaneous variable stars (Olech 1996)
The Observatory
J/other/Obs/116/382 BVRI Photometry of Spectroscopic Binaries (Miller+ 1996)
Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of Australia
J/other/PASAu/6.471 Magellanic Clouds bridge region HI profiles (McGee+ 1986)
Revista Mexicana de Astronomia y Astrofisica
J/other/RMxAA/32.143 uvby photometry in Baade's Window (Ruelas-Mayorga+ 1996)
UPDATED CATALOGS AND JOURNAL TABLES
Standard documentation has been added to the following catalogs:
I. Astrometric and Positional Data
1068A Positions, Proper Mot 1981 Stars Near Alpha Per (Fresneau 1980)
1151 Precise Radio Source Positions from Mark III VLBI (Ma+ 1990)
II. Photometric Data
2086 Ultraviolet Bright-Star Spectrophot Suppl (Macau-Hercot+ 1978)
2171 Parenago Cat of Stars in Orion Neb (Parenago 1954, Malkov 1992)
2178 Cat Linear Polarization Measurements 5070 Stars (Axon+Ellis 1976)
III. Spectroscopic Data
3078 MK Classification Extension (Morris-Kennedy 1983)
VI. Miscellaneous Data
6062 Photoelectric absorption cross-sections (Balucinska-Church+, 1992)
VII. Non-Stellar and Extended Objects
7031B Star Clusters/Associations. I. Associations (Ruprecht+ 1982)
Data reformated or corrected:
II. Photometric Data
2033 uvby, Beta Phot for Bright O-G0 Stars S of +10 (Gronbech+ 1976-7)
2034A Polarization Catalogue (Mathewson+ 1975)
2048 A Reference List for the UBV System (Nicolet 1976)
III. Spectroscopic Data
3177 H-alpha emission stars in the Orion region (Wiramihardja+ 1993)
V. Combined and Derived Data
5015 SAO and Supplementary Data (Ochsenbein 1980)
5070A Nearby Stars 3, Preliminary (Gliese, Jahreiss 1991)
VI. Miscellaneous Data
6043 EXOSAT Observation Log (EXOSAT Obs 1987; Sternberg+ 1986)
VII. Non-Stellar and Extended Objects
7098A Catalogue of 2810 nearby galaxies (Kraan-Korteweg, 1986)
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
J/ApJS/105/475 Observations of double stars. XVII. (Heintz 1996)
J/ApJS/107/19 MRC/1Jy Radio source survey. I. (McCarthy+ 1996)
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
J/MNRAS/274/1165 The 2RE Source Catalogue (Pye+ 1995)
J/MNRAS/274/1194 Optical Identifications of ROSAT EUV Sources (Mason+ 1995)
ReadMe revisited:
Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
J/A+AS/105/311 On the spectra and photometry of M-giant stars (FLUKS 1994)
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