In this issue, Kirk Borne gives an update on ADC's activities pertaining to the development of a National Virtual Observatory. He also describes ADC's new web page listing data mining resources for the space sciences.
Back in October 1999, we described Radio JOVE, a then-new education and outreach effort led by the ADC's parent organization, the Space Science Data Operations Office. Radio JOVE involves public school and college students, as well as interested amateurs in radio astronomy of Jupiter and our Sun. Dr. Thieman gives us an update on this project and its successes to date.
In the July 2000 issue of the ADC News (Volume 9, Issue 3), we reported on various activities now taking place in the US and Europe pertaining to the design and eventual development of a Virtual Observatory (VO), frequently referred to as the NVO (National Virtual Observatory) within the US. The ADC continues to develop data standards and metadata exchange protocols that are designed to facilitate the interoperability among distributed heterogeneous archive data centers, which will be at the heart of the VO.
Our XML Project contributes to this effort through our continued development of data formats (XDF), metadata mark-up, XML conversion tools, and XML query and display software. As usual, the products of our XML Project team are available on-line, at the following website: http://tarantella.gsfc.nasa.gov/xml/ . The XDF (eXtensible Data Format) was invented at the ADC as a natural evolution and generalization of the FITS data format. Our FITS Support Office has been working to incorporate FITS within the XDF framework.
In addition to these efforts and in parallel with them, we have worked with the NCSA to develop a general resource vocabulary for querying and accessing remote data services within the NASA Space Science Data System (SSDS). A draft definition of that resource vocabulary can be reviewed at the following website: http://nvo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ . If adopted, this vocabulary is likely to be implemented as an XML language for use within the VO framework.
Another component of the VO infrastructure will be the middleware software layer. This is the layer that is typically invisible to the archive user, as it should be. The VO has a goal of providing seamless transparent access to the distributed information and data services that comprise its content. Such access requires a layer of software tools that process queries, distribute them to appropriate data centers, query the data centers, receive and filter query results, return results, fuse results from multiple data centers, and present a unified view of the results to the end-user. ADC staff have been working on a prototype of the middleware, which meets a necessary VO design requirement: the data volumes are too large to allow all of the data involved in a query to be transmitted to the end-user, and so the VO must enable the data processing, filtering, reduction, and fusion steps to take place close to the data source. Instead of shipping all of the data to the user, this "on-site" remote processing allows only the desired query results to be transmitted.
The goal of this middleware development project is to develop a standard protocol for distributing or simply initiating a rich set of remote query, processing, and filtering commands from any VO user interface to all constituent VO data providers, and then receiving and fusing the results from that vast array of distributed queries. The ADC staff are contributing to this effort through a collaboration with computer scientists at the University of Maryland.
The ADC is contributing in other ways to the VO development activities, including public outreach, cross-archive linkages, development of data mining and visualization tool suites, and development of appropriate XML languages for interoperability.
Data mining is fast becoming a relevant and required activity for the exploration of large astronomical databases. Data mining is already a mature discipline in the commercial sector, and the scientific community can take advantage of many years of experience and developments already accumulated there. Even so, scientific data mining carries its own set of requirements and user expectations. This will be especially true and pertinent for the NVO. To facilitate and to inform these developments within the astronomical data centers and data user communities, ADC staff have compiled a selection of data mining resources for space science. These are available at this URL: http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/adc_datamining.html . We include there a report and summary of the "Mining the Sky" conference that was held in August 2000 at MPA/ESO/MPE in Garching, Germany. Many techniques and on-going data mining projects were presented at that conference.
In October, 1999 Jim Gass wrote an article for the Astronomical Data Center newsletter describing the Radio JOVE project. For those who missed that or might have forgotten it, let me give an introduction to the project followed by some of the recent accomplishments.
Radio JOVE is an education and outreach project designed to give hands-on experience in radio astronomy to students and the general public. Participants can choose from two levels of involvement. To get completely immersed in radio astronomy they can purchase a kit ($125 U.S.) and build a complete radio telescope (receiver, antenna, and software to emulate a chart recorder) making it possible to observe solar, Jovian, and galactic radio emissions at a frequency of 20.1 MHz. (One can order the kit by using the link to the order form on the Radio JOVE home page: http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov)/. If this is more of a commitment than they want to make, it is still possible to receive radio signals from professional radio telescopes in Hawaii and Florida through the internet using software freely downloadable from the Radio JOVE web pages. The signals from the professional telescopes can also be heard using Windows Media Player. The results can be used to monitor the activity of the Sun, ponder the mysterious periodic nature of Jupiter radio emission, or simply observe the gradual rise and fall of the galactic background radio emission in comparison to the intermittent interruptions by manmade short wave radio signals.
Jim Gass and myself are members of a rather large team of mostly volunteer workers who are dedicated to sharing the experience of radio astronomy and using it to teach the younger generation about the process of scientific research. Since its inception about two years ago, more than 300 kits have been sold and distributed. The kits have been built by a wide range of groups, from college classes to middle school groups, ham radio enthusiasts to interested novices. The CD that comes with the kit now includes software for doing chart recording as well as predicting when Jupiter radio storms are likely to occur and be observable at your location. There are educational activities on the CD and it also includes a new book, "Listening to Jupiter" which is a wonderful primer for the project and for radio astronomy in general.
We encourage sharing of results and are putting together an archive of observations made by participants. For more direct communication there is an email listserv for immediate publishing of results. The Radio JOVE team also uses the listserv to notify everyone of plans for observing the major predictable radio storms of Jupiter as well as warning when the major unpredictable solar radio storms are occurring. To encourage coordinated observing and data sharing we often set up toll-free numbers to be called during the major Jovian radio storms so observers can immediately compare their results with others. New software now makes it possible to share the chart recording you are making with your telescope with anyone else using the same software. You can view their recording as well, enabling side-by-side comparisons of results. The software also allows a chat session to be created so you can comment on each others observations.
We believe the project has made a difference for the participants. Several students have won awards using Radio JOVE as a science fair project. Many have learned not only about astronomy, but electronics and radio science as well. Even as an adjunct to classroom instruction it can serve as an eye-opening experience to the world of science. As an example, try viewing the television report under Radio JOVE in the News at: http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/vc/mm_exhibits.htm.
Contact the author if you have any questions. He can be reached at: thieman@nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov.
The following catalogs and journal tables are currently available from the ADC repository. The ADC gratefully acknowledges the CDS, and individual authors who have recently contributed to our repository.
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.
ID# Abbreviated Title (First Author, Year)
1270 Catalog of Positions of IR Stellar Sources (CPIRSS) (Hindsley+ 1994)
2224 Catalogue of Stellar Diameters (CADARS) (Pasinetti-Fracassini+ 2001)
3216 Stellar Radial Velocities 1991-1998 (Malaroda+ 2001)
3217 Atlas of 840-880nm spectral region (Andrillat+ 1995-1997)
5106 High- and low mass X-ray binaries catalogue (Liu+ 2000)
6101 ISO Observation Log (ISO Team, 2001)
7223 2dF QSO Redshift Survey. V. The 10k catalogue (Croom+ 2001)
7224 Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei (10th Ed.) (Veron+ 2000)
8067 Catalogue of scintillating radio sources (Artyukh+, 1996-1998)
J/A+A/361/491 NGC 3109 X-ray sources (Kahabka+, 2000)
J/A+A/361/991 An analysis of the Ap binary HD 81009 (Wade+ 2000)
J/A+A/363/62 DENIS galaxies around 16h15m -30deg (Rousseau+, 2000)
J/A+A/363/239 Lithium abundances in single giant stars (De Medeiros+ 2000)
J/A+A/363/1051 Properties of He-rich stars. III. (Zboril, 2000)
J/A+A/364/237 Elemental abundances of Deneb (Albayrak+, 2000)
J/A+A/364/391 86GHz VLBI survey of compact radio sources (Lobanov+ 2000)
J/A+A/364/455 ubvy photometry of LMC/SMC B stars (Larsen+, 2000)
J/A+A/364/517 HDF-N spiral and irregular galaxies (Rodighiero+, 2000)
J/A+A/364/665 Very low mass stars radial velocities (Segransan+, 2001)
J/A+A/364/674 Li-rich giants atomic lines (Castilho+, 2001)
J/A+A/364/689 Geneva photometry of HDE 318107 (Manfroid+, 2001)
J/A+A/365/110 JHK photometry of Vega-type and PMS stars (Eiroa+, 2001)
J/A+A/365/370 Photometry of UCM galaxies. II. (Perez-Gonzalez+, 2001)
J/A+A/365/409 ISO continuum observations of quasars (Oyabu+, 2001)
J/A+A/365/545 Remnant disks around main-sequence stars IR flux (Habing+, 2001)
J/A+A/366/68 Spectrophotometric indices from galaxy bulges (Prugniel+, 2001)
J/A+A/366/100 UBV photometry of V Sagittae (Simon+, 2001)
J/A+A/366/428 HI observations of nearby dwarf galaxies (Karachentsev+, 2001)
J/A+A/366/481 ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey. III. (Sevenster+, 2001)
J/A+A/366/498 VI photometry of M33 star clusters (Chandar+, 2001)
J/A+A/366/508 S Dor variables (van Genderen+, 2001)
J/A+A/366/565 Radial oscillations of relativistic stars (Kokkotas+, 2001)
J/A+A/366/771 The Hamburg/SAO Survey for ELGs. IV (Kniazev+, 2001)
J/A+A/366/868 Binary speckle measurements at Calar Alto. I. (Docobo+, 2001)
J/A+A/366/1003 8500-8750{AA} high resolution spectroscopy. III. (Munari+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/86 Chemical abundances of 5 Galactic disk B stars (Smartt+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/111 A Hipparcos study of the Hyades cluster (de Bruijne+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/199 UBVR photometry of AX Per (Skopal+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/236 Radial velocity variations of EN Lac (Lehmann+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/297 Hipparcos variable stars (Adelman+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/498 Candidate Planetary Nebulae in M 33 (Magrini+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/597 ups Her, phi Her & HR 7018 abundances (Adelman+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/725 Proper-motion stars -40<DE<-30, 00<RA<10h40 (Wroblewski+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/759 Variable stars in IC 1613 (Mantegazza+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/859 {alpha} Scl and HD 170973 abundances (Lopez-Garcia+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/865 Speckle observations of binary systems (Prieur+ 2001)
J/A+A/367/910 UBV(RI)c photometry of active stars. IX (Cutispoto+, 2001)
J/A+A/367/1049 Comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) emission lines (Zhang+, 2001)
J/A+A/368/16 Spiral galaxies JHK surface photometry (Moellenhoff+, 2001)
J/A+A/368/797 Soft X-ray properties of Seyfert galaxies (Pfefferkorn+, 2001)
J/A+A/368/845 Arcetri Catalog of H2O maser sources. Update. (Valdettaro+, 2001)
J/A+A/368/932 BVRI photometry of V367 Cyg (Zola+, 2001)
J/A+A/368/1006 Properties of OH/IR stars with IRAS LRS spectra (Chen+, 2001)
J/A+A/369/57 Monitoring Mkn 279 in BVRI and H{beta} fluxes (Santos-Lleo+, 2001)
J/A+A/369/178 Effective temperatures of carbon-rich stars (Bergeat+, 2001)
J/A+A/369/249 T Tauri binary systems orbital motion (Woitas+, 2001)
J/A+A/369/380 CSS/GPS radio sources VLA observations (Fanti+, 2001)
J/A+A/369/511 Open star clusters. III. NGC 4103, 5281, 4755 (Sanner+, 2001)
J/A+A/369/527 Walraven photometry of OB stars (van Houten, 2001)
J/A+A/369/552 Double stars measurements at Nice Obs. (Salaman+, 2001)
J/A+A/369/758 VRI photometry of BL Lac (1997-1999) (Fan+, 2001)
J/A+A/369/960 UBV minima for RU UMi (Manimanis+, 2001)
J/A+A/370/468 Variability of gamma-ray sources (Torres+, 2001)
J/A+A/370/496 Stroemgren by photometry of AI Aurigae (Kiss+, 2001)
J/A+A/370/503 BV(RI)c photometry of 6 symbiotic stars (Munari+, 2001)
J/A+A/370/931 BVI photometry of 4 open clusters (Piatti+, 2001)
J/A+A/370/974 Radial velocities of UX Ari (Duemmler+, 2001)
J/A+A/370/1071 Fe XII UV line intensity ratios (Binello+, 2001)
J/A+AS/41/421 1.4GHz survey in the Virgo region (Kotanyi 1980)
J/A+AS/121/139 UMIST database. 1995 (Millar+, 1997)
J/A+AS/135/145 HII region catalogue of NGC 7479 (Rozas+, 1999)
J/A+AS/142/347 BVRI photometry of NGC 6789 (Drozdovsky+, 2000)
J/AJ/117/1375 Orion Trapezium cluster (Simon+, 1999)
J/AJ/119/2801 8.35 and 14.35 GHz flux at Galactic plane (Langston+, 2000)
J/AJ/120/2269 Wide-Angle-Tailed radio galaxies redshifts (Pinkney+, 2000)
J/AJ/120/2338 Abell 576 redshifts (Rines+, 2000)
J/AJ/120/2638 CCD speckle obs. of binary stars. II. (Horch+, 2000)
J/AJ/120/2747 HDF-South WFPC2 observations (Casertano+, 2000)
J/AJ/120/1426 Chandra sources in ONC & BN-KL (Garmire++, 2000)
J/AJ/121/841 RV photometry of Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy (Piatek+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/861 BVI photometry of central part of M33 (Macri+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/870 Variables in the central part of M33 BVI phot. (Macri+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/891 UBV photometry of LMC OB associations (Parker+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/974 JHK photometry in Cha I (Gomez+, 2001)
J/AJ/121/1192 Proper-motion measurements with the VLA (McGary+, 2001)
J/ApJ/518/656 ASCA Large Sky Survey (Ueda+, 1999)
J/ApJ/540/1016 K-band & NICMOS photometry of Trapezium Cluster (Luhman+, 2000)
J/ApJ/541/841 UBV photometry and ages of Trapezium systems (Abt+, 2000)
J/ApJ/542/673 Morphological types of galaxies in clusters (Fasano+, 2000)
J/ApJ/543/178 Nearby Optical Galaxy (NOG) sample (Giuricin+, 2000)
J/ApJ/546/694 NICMOS star formation history (Thompson +, 2001)
J/ApJS/122/51 Spectroscopic catalog of 10 rich galaxy clusters (Dressler+ 1999)
J/ApJS/122/415 UCM list 3 (Alonso+, 1999)
J/ApJS/125/161 A database of dense cores mapped in ammonia (Jijina+, 1999)
J/ApJS/129/435 NORAS galaxy cluster survey. I. (Bohringer+, 2000)
J/ApJS/129/475 The CNOC2 survey. I. (Yee+, 2000)
J/ApJS/130/177 Arecibo Dual-Beam Survey (Rosenberg+, 2000)
J/ApJS/130/237 LCRS loose groups of galaxies (Tucker+, 2000)
J/ApJS/131/47 Gas-rich dwarfs from the POSS-II. III. (Eder+, 2000)
J/ApJS/131/95 VSOP 5 GHz continuum survey (Fomalont+, 2000)
J/ApJS/131/185 The FIRST sample of ultraluminous IR galaxies (Stanford+, 2000)
J/ApJS/131/561 Double stars with PISCO at Pic du midi (Scardia+, 2000)
J/ApJS/133/1 GIS catalog project : source catalog (Ueda+, 2001)
J/ApJS/133/77 VLA radio continuum survey of Seyfert galaxies (Ho+, 2001)
J/ApJS/133/119 Calan-ESO proper-motion catalog (Ruiz+, 2001)
J/AZh/73/835 Identifications of objects from RC Catalog (Fletcher+, 1996)
J/AZh/74/853 Distances and physical parameters of PNe (Mal'kov, 1997)
J/AZh/75/231 MV Lyr - bursts and periods (Pavlenko, 1998)
J/AZh/77/420 Photopolarimetric activity of SV Cep (Rostopchina+, 2000)
J/AZh/77/499 Flux densities of 235 pulsars at 102.5MHz (Malofeev+, 2000)
J/AZh/78/60 Photometry and polarimetry of Ae star VV Ser (Rostopchina+ 2001)
J/MNRAS/300/303 UV-selected galaxy redshift survey (Treyer+, 1998)
J/MNRAS/312/442 UV-selected galaxy redshift survey. II. (Sullivan+, 2000)
J/MNRAS/318/333 Extended ROSAT Bright Cluster Sample (Ebeling+ 2000)
J/MNRAS/321/77 Large-amplitude variables near the Galactic Centre (Glass+, 2001)
J/PAZh/27/170 BR photometry of the UMa galaxy supercluster (Kopylov+, 2001)
J/other/Ap/31.714 Faint carbon stars in 90<l<115, |b|<5 (Kurtanidze+, 1989)
J/other/BSAO/45.136 Zelenchuk survey 9h<=3DRA<=3D12h, 0<=3DDE<=3D8{deg} (Ugolkova, 1998)
J/other/BSAO/46.28 Complete sample of PMN survey spectra (Mingaliev+, 1998)
ID# Abbreviated Title (First Author, Year)
Data corrected:
J/A+AS/126/247 Galaxies in the "zone of avoidance". IV. (Saurer+, 1997)
J/A+AS/129/87 ROSAT RASS II observations of IRAS galaxies (Boller+ 1998)
J/A+AS/147/25 High-mass X-ray binaries (Liu+ 2000)
J/AJ/118/1395 Speckle interferometry at USNO. IV. (Douglass+, 1999)
Additional data added:
2005A UBV Photometry of Bright Stars (Johnson+ 1966)
2063A Balmer Lines Photometric Data (J. Mermilliod, M. Mermilliod 1980)
2203A Second Extreme Ultra-Violet Explorer Catalog (2EUVE, 1996)
J/ApJS/122/51 Spectroscopic catalog of 10 rich galaxy clusters (Dressler+ 1999)
J/AZh/74/812 102MHz radio source survey (Tyul'bashev 1997)
ReadMe file revisited:
3074 Faint Blue Stars near the South Galactic Pole (Haro, Luyten 1962)
7062A Morphological Catalog of Galaxies (Vorontsov-Velyaminov+ 1962-68)
7180 Gal in 3.5 Degs of Fornax Cluster, Five Nearby Groups (Ferguson+ 1990)
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