Volume 8, Issue 3
July 1999
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INTRODUCTION
One of the greatest joys of working in the astronomical community is
the opportunity to know a variety of unique and talented people. Richard A.
White was such a person. Though his battle with cancer was protracted - a
testament to his inner strength and courage - his death this Spring still came
as something of a shock to family, friends, and coworkers. It seemed like he'd
always be able to bounce back one more time. But it was not to be. Goodbye,
Richard. Thank you for sharing your wit, wisdom, and caring with us.
- James E. Gass (Raytheon ITSS), Editor
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Richard Allan White, in Memorium
James E. Gass (Raytheon ITSS)
Dr. Richard A. White, a part of the NASA Goddard community since 1980, lost
his six year-long battle with leukemia on May 30, 1999. Richard had brought
his data visualization experience to the ADF and the ADC where he spearheaded
the development of enhanced services, such as the ADC data viewer, CatsEye, and
IMPReSS. He was a guiding force behind the ADC's XML efforts.
Dr. White was also an active researcher, publishing a range of astrophysics
papers. Richard supported the SMM, COBE, ROSAT, and GLOBE projects before
joining the ADF.
Friends and coworkers remembered Richard White at a memorial service held
at the Goddard Space Flight Center on June 27, 1999. It is planned that the
text of those remembrances will be placed on the ADF's web site in the near
future. Richard's obituary can be read at
http://adf.gsfc.nasa.gov/adf/bios/richard_a_white_obit_final.html
and a brief biography is at
http://adf.gsfc.nasa.gov/adf/bios/richard_a_white_1.html
He is greatly missed by all who knew him.
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Data Formats: A Community Alert
Joseph H. King (NASA GSFC)
The space science community currently expends considerable resources
maintaining and evolving a wide variety of data formats. A combination of
internal and external pressures make it unlikely that NASA will support all
the currently existing formats into the future. A group of concerned
individuals who represent format developers, researchers, project data
managers, archive managers, and commercial tool vendors have initiated a
Format Evolution Process (FEP) and have convened an FEP Committee, hosted by
the NASA/Science Office of Standards and Technology. During the next few
weeks, you have an opportunity to join this process and express your views
before the shakedown begins. Working together, we can ensure that the formats
we find most useful will survive and evolve.
The astronomy community has been fortunate in having one widely-used format
in FITS. However, input to this formats evolution process is solicited from
the astronomy community. Such input should benefit the space science
community in general, and could eventually benefit the FITS-using community.
You can find a more detailed statement concerning our goals on the WWW at
http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/fep/. The dialogue is organized into
discussion forums focussed on various types of users, format developers, and
tool developers. An easy to use WWW form interface allows you to express your
opinions concerning the various formats you have used and the functionalities
you wish formats and their supporting software had. Completed forms are posted
on the WWW for others to read and comment on via a web-based e-mail service
which allows participants to follow sequential threads of comments. There is
also a forum on the potential impacts of new standards and technologies on the
formats. Participants are encouraged to submit white papers on relevant
topics or provide pointers to such white papers.
We expect the web site to evolve into a NASA-wide resource for information on
formats and support services. Once sufficient material has been submitted, we
plan to convene a meeting of interested contributors to draft consensus
documents guiding future data format evolution. If you use, store, provide,
or manipulate data, you should begin participating in this dialogue now.
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XML at the ADC: Steps to a Next Generation Data Archive
Edward Shaya (Raytheon ITSS)
XML is a markup language for the creation of hierarchical information
structures. The designer captures, in a Document Type Definition (DTD),
requirements on the document's content and provides choices for attributes of
the contents. XML supports automatic checking of documents for structural
validity. XML is supported by nearly every major corporate software developer
world-wide. A rich array of tools are already available to process and display
XML documents. In addition, a new class of scripting languages are being
written in XML to make programming easier. These include languages for
building GUIs, creating web forms, interfacing with databases, examining
decision trees, describing web sites, etc.
The Astronomical Data Center (ADC, http://adc.astro.umd.edu/xml) is involved
in a research project to convert the metadata (ReadMe documents) from plain
ASCII format to the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). This work is funded by
the NASA Applied Information Research Program. The process involves defining
the XML format for the metadata of an astronomical repository and for large
data tables. When completed, the catalogs and journal tables at the ADC
repository will be tightly hyperlinked to enhance data discovery. One will be
able to search on any combination of metadata elements to return the
appropriate catalog name or table name or data value, depending on the
specifics of the query. In addition, the documentation for each data set
will be viewable in several different styles (including the current plain
ASCII format) via eXtensible Style Language (XSL) scripts.
As part of the effort, the ADC is developing an XML tool box for importation,
enhancement, and distribution of tabular data and their metadata documents.
There is now a working draft Document Type Definition available at
http://tarantella.gsfc.nasa.gov/xml/acatalog.dtd, which specifies the required
elements of content and their attributes. The ADC is also actively creating
designs for data retrieval through the web via the XML Query Language (XQL).
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A New Release of AMASE
Cynthia Y. Cheung (NASA GSFC)
The Astrophysics Multispectral Archive Search Engine (AMASE) is an online
astrophysics metadata catalog that uses object-oriented database (OODB)
technology to help researchers locate multi-mission data in the NASA public
archives. AMASE Version 3.0 was released to the public in June 1999. This
version provides significant new capabilities and enhancements to the user
interface. Users can now access all Hubble Space Telescope observations of
non-Solar System objects by the Wide Field and Planetary Cameras 1 and 2;
conduct a fuzzy search for object by name only; and issue pre-defined
queries for more regions defined by complex geometrical boundaries, e.g.,
Hubble Deep Field - North and South, SA57, the Coma Cluster, and the
Perseus Cluster.
AMASE currently provides a search mechanism for select data from eight NASA
missions that span the electromagnetic spectrum from gamma rays to infrared.
Queries can be issued by name only, by position, and/or by object class and
attributes. It also enables a search of the ADC holdings by class. This R&D
prototype database contains over 86,000 astronomical objects and ~100,000
observations. The AMASE Web site is at: http://amase.gsfc.nasa.gov. More
data and functionalities will be made available in the near future. The next
release of AMASE is planned for late August.
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Newly Acquired and Updated Catalogs/Journal Tables
Gail L. Schneider (Raytheon ITSS)
The following catalogs and journal tables are currently available from the
ADC holdings. The ADC gratefully acknowledges the CDS, AAS, and individual
authors who have recently contributed to our holdings.
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)
Photometric Data
2219 New Catalogue of Suspected Variable Stars Supplement (Kazarovets+ 1998)
Spectroscopic Data
3207 Moscow Spectrophotometric Catalog (MSC) (Glushneva+ 1998)
3208 Sternberg Spectrophotometric Catalog (Glushneva+ 1998)
3209 Spectrophotometric Standards (Biryukov+ 1998)
3210 Spectroscopically Identified White Dwarfs (McCook+, 1999)
Miscellanous
6097 Solar and Lunar Eclipses: 1996-2020 (Espenak, 1997)
Non-Stellar and Extended Objects
7213 Hickson's Compact groups of Galaxies (Hickson+ 1982-1994)
Radio Sources
8052A The MIT-Green Bank 5GHz Survey (Bennett+, 1986-91)
8053 The Green Bank Survey (Maslowski+ 1972-87)
High-Energy Data
9022 Einstein extended deep survey (Primini+, 1991)
Astronomy and Astrophysics
J/A+A/331/81 Hyades membership (Perryman+ 1998)
J/A+A/331/949 Wolf-Rayet and O-star runaways kinematics (Moffat+ 1998)
J/A+A/338/1066 Optical Spectra of DENIS Brown Dwarf Candidate (Tinney+ 1998)
J/A+A/344/263 B-V colour excess of Miras (Knapik+, 1999)
J/A+A/344/943 Sh 138 BVRIJHK photometry (Deharveng+ 1999)
J/A+A/345/419 Star formation in early-type galaxies (Longhetti+ 1999)
J/A+A/345/430 Abundances of 6 cool supergiants in NGC 330 (Hill, 1999)
J/A+A/345/505 UBVI magnitudes of NGC 869 B-type pulsators (Krzesinski+, 1999)
J/A+A/345/521 BVRI photometry of NGC 2264 (Flaccomio+, 1999)
J/A+A/345/629 Abundance gradients in planetary nebulae (Maciel+, 1999)
J/A+A/346/586 Rotating models of A and F stars (Perez Hernandez+, 1999)
J/A+A/346/785 NaI in Local Bubble (Sfeir+, 1999)
Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
J/A+AS/74/315 327 MHz Survey of the A262 cluster region (Righetti+, 1988)
J/A+AS/75/67 Survey around the North Ecliptic Pole at 11 cm (Loiseau+, 1988)
J/A+AS/80/215 Lunar occultations of weak radio sources (Akujor+, 1989)
J/A+AS/89/311 Optical positions of 221 radio stars (Requieme+, 1991)
J/A+AS/92/1 Secondary Spectrophotometric standards (Glushneva+ 1992)
J/A+AS/99/545 The Miyun 232 MHz survey. I (Zhang+, 1993)
J/A+AS/122/471 Variables in Omega Cen Fields 5139D-F (Kaluzny+ 1997)
J/A+AS/125/229 A standard stellar library (Lejeune+ 1997)
J/A+AS/126/325 Compact Radio Sources in & behind LMC catalogue (Marx+ 1997)
J/A+AS/131/395 Eclipsing binaries light curves models (Claret 1998)
J/A+AS/134/545 Double star measurements 1995-1997 (Aristidi+ 1999)
J/A+AS/135/499 Double star measurements (Salaman+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/1 CPASJ2 catalogue (Manrique+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/35 WR galaxies and HII regions catalog (Schaerer+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/81 A ROSAT PSPC X-Ray Survey of the SMC (Kahabka, 1999)
J/A+AS/136/95 V380 Ori emission line spectrum (Rossi+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/111 uvby photometry of 4 CP stars (Adelman+, 1999)
J/A+AS/136/139 VB light curves of YY Eri (Yang+, 1999)
J/A+AS/136/257 Saturn's satellites in 1995/97 (Harper+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/261 Reference stars for 12 low-extinction fields (Dominici+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/293 Sirius photographic observations (Jasinta+, 1999)
J/A+AS/136/307 Coma Berenices astrometric catalogue (Abad+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/373 Orbits of 8 multiples (Tokovinin, 1999)
J/A+AS/136/379 uvby photometry of 4 CP stars (Adelman+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/395 IRON Project XXXVII. Fe VI collision strengths (Chen+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/429 Herbig Ae/Be stars candidates (Corporon+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/445 CCD observations of Nereid (Veiga 1999)
J/A+AS/136/453 Equivalent widths of spectroscopic binaries (Zacs+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/455 BVRI photometry of 3 BL Lac objects (Bai+, 1999)
J/A+AS/136/471 JHK photometry of D-cloud IRAS sources (Massi+, 1999)
J/A+AS/136/509 Stellar kinematics in spiral galaxies. II. (Heraudeau+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/515 DQ Cephei amplitude variations (Li+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/525 DeltaV photometry of visual double stars (Sinachopoulos+, 1999)
J/A+AS/136/531 Valinhos CCD Meridian Circle radio stars (Lopes+, 1999)
J/A+AS/136/571 Pulsars identified from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (Han+ 1999)
J/A+AS/136/519 Mg2 indices for early-type galaxies (Golev+, 1999)
J/A+AS/137/43 OH/H2O masers database (Forster+, 1999)
J/A+AS/137/75 ESO Imaging Survey (Zaggia+, 1999)
J/A+AS/137/101 H-band photometry in Pisces-Perseus spirals (Moriondo+ 1999)
J/A+AS/137/113 Walraven photometry of OB stars (van Houten+, 1999)
J/A+AS/137/157 O III recombination coefficients (Kisielius+, 1999)
J/A+AS/137/165 IRON Project XXXVIII. Fe XV (Eissner+ 1999)
J/A+AS/137/227 HD 133029 & HD 192913 elemental abundances (Lopez-Garcia+ 1999)
J/A+AS/137/269 Calern Observatory absolute declinations (Martin+, 1999)
J/A+AS/137/273 Reference A0V stars (Gerbaldi+ 1999)
J/A+AS/137/293 ZOAG galaxies in 115{deg}<l<157{deg} (Weinberger+, 1999)
J/A+AS/137/299 Hamburg/SAO Survey for ELGs. II. (Pustilnik+ 1999)
J/A+AS/137/369 10 active binary radial velocities (Fekel+, 1999)
Astronomical Journal
J/AJ/98/419 Observed quantities from B3 sources (Vigotti+, 1989)
J/AJ/98/1148 VLA survey of 0016+16, Abell 665, and Abell 2218 (Moffet+, 1989)
J/AJ/102/1663 Radio properties of extragal. IRAS sources (Condon+, 1991)
J/AJ/115/193 RR Lyrae V light curves (Layden, 1998)
J/AJ/115/592 VI photometry of NGC 2157 (Fischer+, 1998)
J/AJ/115/1076 UBRVI photometry of Collinder 110 (Dawson+, 1998)
J/AJ/115/1856 Dwarf Cepheids in Carina (Mateo+, 1998)
J/AJ/116/941 10 Lac UV spectral atlas (Brandt+, 1998)
J/AJ/116/1447 RZ Cas JK light curves (Varricatt+, 1998)
J/AJ/116/1801 IC 4996 CCD photometry (Delgado+, 1998)
J/AJ/116/1922 CaII H and K filter photometry III. (Anthony-Twarog+, 1998)
J/AJ/116/2246 HII regions in UGCA 86, 92, 105 and UGC 4115 (Kingsburgh+, 1998)
J/AJ/116/2549 HW Per UBV differential photometry (Samec+, 1998)
J/AJ/116/2805 H II regions in spiral galaxies (Van Zee+, 1998)
Astrophysical Journal
J/ApJ/315/687 X-Ray emission from solar-type stars: F and G (Maggio+, 1987)
J/ApJ/325/798 Einstein survey of stars in the Hyades (Micela+, 1988)
J/ApJ/348/557 X-ray studies of stars in the Pleiades (Micela+, 1990)
J/ApJ/351/492 X-ray emission in the Ursa Major stream. (Schmitt+, 1990)
J/ApJ/374/440==>see catalog 9022
J/ApJ/427/684==>see catalog 7213
J/ApJ/475/469 Composite HST Spectrum of Quasars (Zheng+ 1997)
J/ApJ/499/517 Ethylene oxide spectrum (Pan+, 1998)
J/ApJ/500/1059 Dimethyl ether transitions frequencies (Groner+, 1998)
J/ApJ/504/113 F175W and F275W photometry of M31 and M32 (Brown+, 1998)
J/ApJ/507/585 Hubble Deep Field galaxy morphology (Marleau+, 1998)
J/ApJ/507/655 VI photometry of new Cepheids in NGC 2541 (Ferrarese+, 1998)
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
J/ApJS/61/1==>see catalog 8052A
J/ApJS/72/621==>see catalog 8052A
J/ApJS/73/359 1.49 GHz atlas of the IRAS bright galaxies (Condon+, 1990)
J/ApJS/73/781 X-ray observations of galactic Supernova Remnants (Seward, 1990)
J/ApJS/74/129==>see catalog 8052A
J/ApJS/75/801==>see catalog 8052A
J/ApJS/80/137 Southern Extragalactic Radio Sources (Jones+, 1992)
J/ApJS/80/531 An X-ray catalog and atlas of galaxies. (Fabbiano+, 1992)
J/ApJS/96/123 H-magnitudes of spiral galaxies (Tormen+ 1995)
J/ApJS/115/185 3C 390.3 BVRI and H photometry (Dietrich+, 1998)
J/ApJS/115/241 The FCRAO CO Survey of the Outer Galaxy (Heyer+, 1998)
J/ApJS/117/361 PNe in NRAO VLA Sky Survey (Condon+ 1998)
J/ApJS/117/427 Sgr B2 spectral survey (Nummelin+, 1998)
J/ApJS/119/189 Deep Multicolor Survey. IV. (Osmer+ 1998)
J/ApJS/119/277 -3.5<=DE<=8.5, 11.5<RA<13.5 redshift survey (Grogin+, 1998)
J/ApJS/121/1==>see catalog 3210
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
J/MNRAS/171/475 The 5C5 survey of radio sources. (Pearson, 1975)
J/MNRAS/182/273 The 5C6 and 5C7 surveys of radio sources. (Pearson, 1978)
J/MNRAS/200/747 5C12: survey near the North Galactic Pole (Benn+, 1982)
J/MNRAS/216/173 Bright extragalactic radio sources at 2.7 GHz (Wall+, 1985)
J/MNRAS/238/1171 Optical/IR observ. of Radio Galaxies and QSOs (Dunlop+, 1989)
J/MNRAS/268/602 Compact radio cores in radio galaxies. (Jones+, 1994)
J/MNRAS/276/33 UBVRI CCD sequences for wide-field surveys. I. (Boyle+ 1995)
J/MNRAS/298/637 7C: 151MHz survey of 3 regions (Pooley+, 1998)
J/MNRAS/299/1 BVI photometry in four open clusters (Sagar+, 1998)
J/MNRAS/300/417 Durham/UKST Galaxy Redshift Survey (Ratcliffe+, 1998)
J/MNRAS/304/733 Beta Pictoris 1994-96 (Petterson+, 1999)
Astronomicheskij Zhurnal
J/AZh/62/229 Giant H II region Ratan-600 observations (Berlin+ 1985)
Acta Astronomica
J/other/AcA/22.227==>see catalog 8053
J/other/AcA/28.367==>see catalog 8053
J/other/AcA/37.163==>see catalog 8053
J/other/AcA/48.147 OGLE SMC BVI photometry (Udalski+ 1998)
J/other/AcA/48.175 OGLE LMC clusters (Pietrzynski+ 1998)
J/other/AcA/48.289 OGLE-I long-period and non-periodic variables (Zebrun 1998)
EXTERNAL DATA SET LINKS
Miscellaneous Data External Databases
E6004 Grids of model atmospheres (Kurucz 1998)
Nonstellar and Extended Objects External Databases
E7004 Extragalactic Megamaser Database (Braatz 1998)
UPDATED JOURNAL TABLES
The journal_tables are grouped according to journal title as follows:
Data reformatted or corrected
Table 1 added
Data reformatted or corrected:
Astronomicheskij Zhurnal
J/AZh/62/229 Giant H II region Ratan-600 obs. (Berlin+ 1985)
Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
J/A+AS/124/259 Westerbork Northern Sky Survey I. (Rengelink+ 1997)
J/A+AS/136/453 Equivalent widths of spectroscopic binaries (Zacs+ 1999)
Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
J/ApJS/101/41 SMC and Bridge extended catalog (Bica+ 1995)
Astronomy and Astrophysics
J/A+A/331/949 Wolf-Rayet & O-star runaways kinematics (Moffat+ 1998)
Publications of the Bull. Special Astrophys. Obs
J/other/BSAO/40.5 RATAN-600 RC radio sources (Parijskij+ 1996)
Table 1 added:
Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
J/A+AS/92/1 Secondary Spectrophotometric standards (Glushneva 1992)
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