Volume 7, Issue 3
July 1998
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INTRODUCTION
The major theme of the articles in this issue is new services to make your use
of the ADC more efficient. Several new services are being announced, as are
some new interoperability efforts. Here's a summary of these services and
efforts:
The CDS and ADC have set up a second installation of the VizieR catalog data
lookup and display service here at the ADC. This installation is now publicly
accessible from the ADC web site. See the article in this issue for more
about this very useful service.
The ADC is working with other data service providers in the astrophysics
community on a variety of initiatives to improve the interoperability of our
services with theirs. The goal is a synergy of these complimentary services
to the benefit of both users and the data centers. Three on-going efforts are
described in this issue.
We are always looking for new ways to make our web site more useful. The
latest development is the introduction of our new "ADC Quick Reference Pages".
Each Quick Reference Page concentrates on a specific astronomical or
ADC-related subject area, and includes convenient links to useful data on that
topic, both at the ADC and other sites. The first set of these pages is now
available.
The Astrophysics Multispectral Archive Search Engine (AMASE) prototype now has
an ADC "Class Query" service. This can be used to search for ADC data sets
that have a combination of classes and attributes based on subject keywords.
The AMASE article in this issue explains how this can be accessed and used.
The period for comments on the draft FITS standard has passed (see the last
issue). A brief article in this issue tells what will happen next in the
process of revising the official standard.
- James E. Gass (Raytheon STX), Editor
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CDS' VizieR Service Now Available at ADC, Too
James E. Gass (Raytheon STX)
The Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg's (CDS) VizieR service for
astronomical catalogs is now available from three sites: at CDS in France,
at the Astronomical Data Analysis Center (ADAC) in Japan, and here at the
ADC in the U.S.A. The three data centers are supporting these geographically
distributed installations to give astronomers world-wide convenient access
to this valuable service.
VizieR is an Internet-based tool for retrieving astronomical data that have
been published in more than 1800 catalogs and tables. It was originally
developed as a joint effort of CDS and ESA-ESRIN (Information Systems
Division). The data available through VizieR are organized in a
self-documented database. Through the use of a relational database system,
VizieR allows users to issue queries to locate specific data of interest at
the record level across the collection.
This is typically accomplished in several steps:
1. Locate catalogs by catalog abbreviation, keywords, etc.
2. Choose tables from those contained the catalog(s).
(Several tables may be queried simultaneously.)
3. Specify output choices and constraints, such as columns, number of
rows, output order, parameter ranges, region of the sky.
4. Display the results as specified in the previous step.
5. Display any one full record returned in the previous step.
The VizieR service at ADC can be accessed from its entry page at
http://adc.astro.umd.edu/vizier/. ADC users can also choose VizieR as an
access option for many of the catalogs found on our ADC Archives Holdings List
(http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/adc_holdings1.html), or from our ADC Data Search
(http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/archive_search.html).
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ADC Participates in Community Interoperability Efforts
Richard A. White (NASA GSFC)
The ADC is participating in three related efforts intended to approve
interoperability between astrophysical data centers. Interoperability means
both that the centers themselves can query each others' holding and that users
at any particular center can transparently query and access the holdings at
any other participating center. ADC's role in all three efforts is that of
the reference library for computer-readable catalogs and journal tables for
the community.
The first effort is participation in the Astrophysics Data Center Coordinating
Council (ADCCC). (http://hea-www.harvard.edu/adccc/) The ADCCC is an ad hoc
group of representatives from the five major astrophysics data centers
supported by NASA. The purpose of this committee is to improve the
interoperability of the services now offered by the individual data centers,
making it easier and more practical to carry out interdisciplinary research in
astrophysics. In addition, this group will explore mechanisms to extend
connections to other Space Science disciplines, coordinating through the Space
Science Data Services (SSDS) Technical Working Group. The five data centers
are the ADC/NSSDC, STScI, HEASARC, IPAC, and SAO.
The second effort is participation in the development and implementation of
protocols and software supporting Astrobrowse
(http://hea-www.harvard.edu/adccc/useful_links.html), which allows common
SQL-like queries for metadata to the participating data centers, which include
CDS as well as the ADCCC. Initial implementations of this effort were
demonstrated at the AAS meeting in San Diego. Participation is open to all
who are willing to support the protocols.
The third effort is a joint AISRP proposal to greatly enhance data searching
and integration among the participants' data holdings and services. In
addition to the above centers, NCSA, Beppo/SAX, and PDS (Planetary Data
System) are participants. The enhancements would come through development of
a rich, extensible profile protocol for describing data holdings, a protocol
for return of the results of queries and requests, and tools to integrate the
results from the many data centers.
We expect these cooperative efforts will vastly improve user services provided
by all the data centers at minimal additional cost.
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ADC Quick Reference Pages: a new service
Janet L. Weiland (Raytheon STX)
With the ever-growing number of catalogs and journal tables now available at
the ADC, a simple keyword search on a general topic can generate a rather long
list of potentially interesting data holdings. In cases such as this, users
who are unfamiliar with that particular subject or who are uncertain how to
narrow their search parameters might appreciate seeing a list of some
suggested data sources with which to start.
As an experimental new service for our users, ADC is making available a set of
`Quick Reference Pages' (QRPs). Each QRP is devoted to a particular
astronomical or ADC-related topic, and contains selected links to data
sources for that topic. These links generally point to data holdings within
the ADC, but there are also many links to sources at other sites, where
appropriate. The QRPs do not provide a comprehensive list of all available
data on a topic: additional references may be found via the ADC archive search
options.
A top-level description of the QRPs is located at
http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/top_refpage.html. This top-level page lists the
currently available QRPs, and from here users can link to whichever page
interests them. At present, there are three existing QRPs, covering the
topics of our Solar System, Basic Stellar Data, and the Interstellar Medium
within our Galaxy. Additional QRPs are planned, including one on
extragalactic topics. Suggestions or comments from users on the effectiveness
of the QRPs are welcome.
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Search for ADC Data using AMASE
Cynthia Y. Cheung (NASA GSFC)
The ADC is providing a new catalog-locating service using the Astrophysics
Multispectral Archive Search Engine (AMASE), http://amase.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
AMASE is a research prototype funded by the NASA Applied Information System
Research Program. It is built using object-oriented data base (OODB)
methodology and allows NASA multi-mission and multispectral data to be
searched easily by scientific parameters.
In AMASE, each ADC catalog or journal table is an "object" characterized by
"classes" and "attributes". The classes and attributes are derived from ADC
keywords. Unlike the ADC compiled keyword list which allows only a simple
look up, the AMASE query will allow the use of a combination of classes and
attributes to search for the relevant items, e.g., "ACTIVE GALAXIES" and
"jets", or "GALAXIES" and "CO". In this first release, the ADC-keyword
derived classes and attributes have not been fully integrated into the rich
astronomical classification scheme that is deployed in AMASE. We plan to
provide this capability in the next release so that both NASA observational
data on an astronomical object and the relevant ADC catalogs about the class
of objects can be retrieved at the same time.
The ADC Catalog Class Query option can be accessed from the ADC site map or
from the AMASE home page. The URL is:
http://amase.gsfc.nasa.gov/AMASE/adc_catalogs.html
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Period for Comments on Revised FITS Standard Closes
James E. Gass (Raytheon STX)
As reported in the last issue, the NASA/Science Office of Standards and
Technology (NOST) announced the availability of Draft Standard 100-1.2,
Definition of the Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) for review and
comments. The period for comments closed on July 15, 1998.
This draft standard is a major revision to version 1.1 of the FITS standard,
adopted in 1995. 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/.
More than 90 individuals submitted comments. These are under review and
consideration by the NOST-sponsored Technical Panel that is developing the
revised standard. Once this process is completed, the collated comments and
responses will be emailed to all who submitted comments. As the panel's work
will take some time, the FITS Support Office will periodically post progress
reports on the review process on the Office's web site and on appropriate
Newsgroups and email exploders.
After the panel has completed review of and responded to all comments, the
final version of the draft standard 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.
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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, we are including a list of our latest links to external
databases.
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
ID# Abbreviated Title (First Author, Year)
I. Astrometric and Positional Data
1040 WASHINGTON 20 Catalog (Morgan, 1933)
1248 Tokyo Photoelectric Meridian Circle Catalog 90-93 (Yoshizawa+ 1997)
1249 Tokyo meridian circle catalog of O-B stars (Yasuda+ 1986)
1250 The Tycho Reference Catalogue (Hog+ 1998)
III. Spectroscopic Data
3190B WEB Catalog of Radial Velocities (Duflot+ 1995)
3193 Chemical Abundances in Late-Type Stars (Thevenin, 1998)
V. Combined and Derived Data
5099 Cataclysmic Binaries and LMXB Catalogue (Ritter+ 1998)
VII. Non-Stellar and Extended Objects
7201 Cross-Identifications in Abell and Zwicky clusters (Kalinkov+ 1998)
7207 Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei (8th Ed.) (Veron+ 1998)
7208 Faint Galaxies at the North Galactic Pole (Infante+ 1995)
VIII. Radio Source Data
8041 The UTR-2 Very Low-Frequency Sky Survey Data (Braude+ 1978-1982)
8050 VLA Survey of Rich Clusters of Galaxies (Slee+ 1996)
8051 The FIRST Survey, version 1998Feb (White+ 1998) - Supersedes 8048
Astronomy and Astrophysics
J/A+A/329/329 SMART97, rigid Earth rotation new solution (Bretagnon+ 1998)
J/A+A/332/410 Quasar polarization (Hutsemekers 1998)
J/A+A/332/575 Pleiades member list (Belikov+ 1998)
J/A+A/332/586 Cataclysmic variables light curves (Bruch 1998)
J/A+A/332/721 Planetary nebulae abundances (Perinotto+ 1998)
J/A+A/332/L53 The PL relation of galactic carbon LPVs (Bergeat+ 1998)
J/A+A/333/205 HD 185510 UBV photometry (Frasca+ 1998)
J/A+A/333/231 O-M stars model atmospheres (Bessell+ 1998)
J/A+A/333/471 UBVRI photometry of NGC 1750 and NGC 1758 (Galadi-Enriquez+ 1998)
J/A+A/333/479 NGC 1851 dynamical and evolutionary properties (Saviane+ 1998)
J/A+A/333/619 Upper Scorpius OB association lithium survey (Preibisch+ 1998)
J/A+A/333/658 D-type symbiotic stars emission line fluxes (Pereira+ 1998)
J/A+A/333/L35 Magellanic Clouds Cepheids Fourier decomposition (Antonello 1998)
J/A+A/333/897 Mass segregation in open clusters (Raboud+ 1998)
J/A+A/333/952 BVRI photometry of HR 1105 (Adelman 1998)
J/A+A/334/609 Carbon stars IR photometry (Guglielmo+ 1998)
Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
J/A+AS/127/367 Virgo Photometry Catalogue (VPC) (Young+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/457 Proper motion LTT stars -5<DE<-30, 0<RA<13h30 (Wroblewski+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/459 BV photometry of irregular galaxies (Makarova+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/471 Grids of stellar models. VII. (Mowlavi+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/475 Spectroscopy of MWC 158 (Jaschek+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/485 Library of UES spectra late-type stars (Montes+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/507 The Hamburg Quasar Survey. II. (Engels+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/545 NGC 4736 HII regions fluxes (Rodrigues+ 1998)
J/A+AS/128/561 UBVRI photometry of southern T Tauri stars (Batalha+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/1 GRANAT/WATCH catalogue of gamma-ray bursts (Sazonov+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/9 Delta Sct stars in Praesepe (Pena+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/41 Fe I line shifts in the Sun (Allende Prieto+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/147 Co II radiative transition probabilities (Quinet 1998)
J/A+AS/129/155 Si XI & Si XIII lines Stark broadening (Dimitrijevic+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/237 G and K dwarfs abundances (Feltzing+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/281 ABCG 85 velocities catalogue (Durret+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/289 Long-term spectrophotometry of Be stars (Moujtahid+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/337 CCD photometry of YY Orionis stars (Harder+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/357 Morphology of peculiar ring galaxies (Faundez-Abans+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/399 The ENACS Catalogue. V. (Katgert+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/455 Dwarf galaxy candidates around interacting galaxies (Deeg+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/541 Spectroscopy of IRC +10420 (Oudmaijer 1998)
J/A+AS/129/563 Abundances of HR 4487, 14 Hyd and 3 Cen A (Pintado+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/569 BVRI photometry of OJ 287 (Jia Guibin+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/577 AO 0235+164 BVRI photometry (Takalo+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/583 Hubble Deep Field surface photometry (Fasano+ 1998)
J/A+AS/129/593 BVRI surface photometry for 14 Sb galaxies (Cunow 1998)
J/A+AS/129/603 High-nl Rydberg states in C II, C III and C IV (Quinet 1998)
J/A+AS/130/77 Astrometry of Satellites of Uranus (Jones+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/109 BV(RI)c photometry of ON 231 (Tosti+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/117 Double stars micrometer measurements (Docobo 1998)
J/A+AS/130/133 UBV polarimetry of 361 A- and F-type stars (Reiz+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/157 Hipparcos intermediate astrometric data (van Leeuwen+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/223 Multiplicity among peculiar A stars I. (North+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/233 WATCH Solar X-Ray Burst Catalogue (Crosby+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/245 Light curves of the PMS system TY CrA (Vaz+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/251 Star Formation in Early-type galaxies (Longhetti+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/285 Sample of starburst nucleus galaxies (Contini+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/323 ESO Slice Project (Vettolani+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/333 2112 new 21-cm line measurements (Theureau+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/359 Faint photometric BVR CCD sequences (Spagna+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/421 Radio continuum study of the MC (Filipovic+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/455 ELTAa photometry of southern B & A bright stars (Vogt+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/477 vby{beta} photometry in 3 EUV shadow directions (Knude 1998)
J/A+AS/130/513 Calcium triplet synthesis (Garcia-Vargas+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/539 Stark broadening of Na X (Dimitrijevic+ 1998)
J/A+AS/130/541 Co II oscillator strengths (Raassen+ 1998)
Astronomical Journal
J/AJ/104/1765 Faint Stroemgren photometry (von Hippel 1992)
J/AJ/115/6 Hercules supercluster kinematics (Barmby+ 1998)
J/AJ/115/734 NGC 6231 UBVRI and H{alpha} photometry (Sung+ 1998)
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
J/ApJS/110/213 Morphological Types in 10 Distant Rich Clusters (Smail+ 1997)
J/ApJS/112/109 Rho Ophiuchi Near IR Positions and Photometry (Barsony+, 1997)
J/ApJS/116/1 Old Stellar Populations. VI. Absorption-Line (Trager+ 1998)
Astronomicheskij Zhurnal
J/AZh/73/762 Energy distribution in giants and supergiants. (Tereshchenko, 1996)
Pis'ma v Astronomicheskij Zhurnal
J/PAZh/23/931 Star kinematics catalog in 19 Kapteyn's areas (Rastorguev+ 1997)
J/PAZh/24/93 M 31 reference catalog (Shokin+ 1998)
J/PAZh/24/307 Visual components in 82 multiple systems (Shatsky, 1998)
J/PAZh/24/343 New spectroscopic components (Tokovinin, 1998)
EXTERNAL DATA SET LINKS
Photometric Data External Databases
E/II/1 DDO Database of Galactic Classical Cepheids (Fernie+ 1995)
Combined and Derived Data External Databases
E/V/1 SkyView, The Internet's Virtual Telescope (McGlynn + 1996)
Nonstellar and Extended Objects External Databases
E/VII/3 COSMOS/UKST Catalog of the Southern Sky (Yentis+ 1992)
Radio Sources External Databases
E/VIII/3 USNO Radio Reference Frame Image Database (Fey+ 1998)
E/VIII/4 1.4 GHz NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) (Condon+ 1998)
High-Energy Data External Databases
E/IX/2 The First ROSAT High Resolution Imager Source Catalog (Arida+ 1998)
UPDATED CATALOGS AND JOURNAL TABLES
Standard documentation has been added to the following catalogs:
II. Photometric Data
2083 OAO 2 Ultraviolet Filter Photometry for 531 Stars (Code+ 1980)
III. Spectroscopic Data
3089 Stellar Spectrophotometry (Adelman+ 1989)
3130 Wavelength Dependence of Galactic UV Extinction (Aiello+ 1988)
VII. Non-Stellar and Extended Objects
7099 Radial Velocities of Galaxies (Palumbo+ 1986)
Additional data files added:
III. Spectroscopic Data
3077 Copernicus 0.2-A Resolution Far-UV Stellar Spectra (Snow+ 1977)
VII. Non-Stellar and Extended Objects
7200 Redshift Survey at the NGP (Willmer+ 1996)
Corrections added:
II. Photometric Data
2216 Catalog of Infrared observations, Edition 4 (CIO) (Gezari+ 1997)
Astronomy and Astrophysics
J/A+A/327/522 Molecular gas content of spiral galaxies (Boselli+ 1997)
Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
J/A+AS/90/327 1612 MHz OH survey of IRAS point sources (TE LINTEL HEKKERT 1991)
J/A+AS/104/315 A new catalogue of members and candidate members (THE 1994)
J/A+AS/126/503 Southern spiral galaxies scaleheights (Ma+ 1997)
J/A+AS/127/521 Very luminous IRAS galaxies spectra. (Wu+ 1998)
J/AJ/113/905 HI observations of galaxies (Pantoja+ 1997)
Astrophysical Journal
J/ApJ/445/62 Radio properties of optically selected quasars (Hooper+ 1995)
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
J/ApJS/74/181 Small-diameter radiosources catalogue (Zoonematkermani+, 1990)
ReadMe revisited:
I. Astrometric and Positional Data
1152 Jupiter-Voyager Reference Star Catalogue (Klemola+ 1978)
1153 Saturn-Voyager Reference Star Catalogue (Klemola+ 1979)
II. Photometric Data
2161 Equatorial Infrared Catalog (Sweeney, Richardson 1990)
III. Spectroscopic Data
3088 Stellar Spectrophotometric Atlas 3130-10800 A (Gunn, Stryker 1983)
V. Combined and Derived Data
5092A UBVb, Spectro. & uvby databases for southern luminous stars (Reed+ 1997)
VII. Non-Stellar and Extended Objects
7100 MCG Vol.5 (Vorontsov-Velyaminov+, 1974)
Astronomy and Astrophysics
J/A+A/288/713 Star formation in galaxies (Firmani+ 1994)
Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
J/A+AS/122/249 uvby photometry of 4 CP stars (Adelman, 1997)
J/A+AS/123/445 uvby photometry of metallic & Hg-Mn stars (Adelman 1997)
J/A+AS/125/65 uvby photometry of 4 CP stars (Adelman, 1997)
J/A+AS/125/497 Theta Vir and 109 Vir uvby photometry (Adelman 1997)
J/A+AS/128/245 Photometry of chemically peculiar stars (Adelman+ 1998)
References and notes reformatted:
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
J/PASP/107/299 Occultation Binaries Catalog (Mason 1995)
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