Astronomical Data Center

ADCADC/CDS Standard Document for Catalog:
/external/combined/E5001/

The ADC has expanded its resources in order to better serve our users, we have developed a new category called "external" to complement our catalogs and journal table directories. You can access the data set described here through the URL:
http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

The following is an abbreviated "ReadMe" document that describes this external data set.
E/V/1            SkyView (McGlynn + 1996) 
================================================================================
SkyView, The Internet's Virtual Telescope
   McGlynn T., Scollick K., White N.
   <IAU Symposium No. 179, p465 (1996)>
================================================================================
ADC_Keywords: Surveys; External catalog

Location: http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Description:
   SkyView is a Virtual Observatory on the Net. SkyView generates images of 
   any part of the sky at wavelengths in all regimes from radio to gamma-ray. 
   SkyView is a Virtual Observatory on the Net. Astronomers can generate images 
   of any portion of the sky at wavelengths in all regimes from radio to 
   gamma-ray. Users tell SkyView the position, scale and orientation desired, 
   and SkyView gives users an image made to their specification. The user need
   not worry about transforming between equinoxes or coordinate systems, 
   mosaicking submaps, rotating the image,.... SkyView handles these geometric
   issues and lets the user get started on astronomy. 

   SkyView has two interfaces: the web interface and the interactive interface.
   The web interface uses HTML forms to format a request and sends the request
   to SkyView . A page with a GIF of the region requested is displayed with 
   anchors that retrieve a FITS image or images is returned to the user. 

   Two HTML forms are available. The basic form allows the user choice of 
   surveys, area and size of image, but is simple enough to fit in a 
   default-size Mosaic window. The advanced form gives the user more detailed 
   control over the size and resolution of the image, and allows combining 
   data from multiple images and overlaying images with catalog markers. With 
   these two forms, the labels for each of the fields are anchors to 
   documentation on the meaning and use of the field. 

   The Interactive interface lets the user work interactively with images. It 
   starts a remote X-windows display on the user's host machine which runs a 
   SkyView session on the SkyView host. Users have all of the capabilities of 
   the web interface but can also manipulate the images they retrieve. Users 
   can play with the color tables, smooth images, look at catalogs 
   interactively, get the coordinates of points within an image, and 
   manipulate contour and image overlays. 

   Users can get the the interface directly from the web, or through the 
   generic xray account set up by the HEASARC. Users log in as xray on 
   legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov. This account has no password and allows users to 
   access a wide variety of HEASARC services. The skyview command in this 
   environment starts and interactive SkyView session. Further information is 
   available in the SkyView Users Guide which is available on the net and 
   through anonymous FTP on skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov . Information of the data 
   available in SkyView is available in The SkyView Surveys Guide. 

References:
   SkyView was developed under NASA ADP Grant NAS5-32068 
   with P.I. Thomas A. McGlynn under the auspices of the High
   Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) 
   at the GSFC Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics. 
================================================================================(End)                     Gail L. Schneider      [ADC/SSDOO]       11-May-1998
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