Building a National Virtual Observatory: The case of the Spanish Virtual Observatory

Talk at the presentation workshop for the Chilean Virtual Observatory (ChiVO), on lessons that can be learned from the development of the Spanish Virtual Observatory, and how ChiVO has already applied most of them.

Transcript

1. BUILDING A NATIONAL VIRTUAL OBSERVATORY THE CASE OF THE SPANISH VIRTUAL OBSERVATORY JUAN DE DIOS SANTANDER VELA (IAA-CSIC) VIA-SKA PROJECT MANAGER, AMIGA GROUP “ASTROINFORMATICIAN”
2. Talk Outline If you want it, build it… But then you need to work a lot! …with a little help from my friends The Virtual Observatory is a community of people Build on your strengths Do what you are most comfortable with Know thee, and thy neighbour Do what you can, and what they want Interoperate!
3. If you want it, build it… But then you need to work a lot!
4. Creating the IVOA All initial IVOA members motivated by the possibility of making new science And the prospective that science will eventually be impossible without it! Worked to create IVOA (mirroring W3C organisation) Seeked funding for (inter)national VO projects and IVOA itself bottom-up approach from the community
5. Getting into the IVOA IVOA established in 2002 Enrique Solano goes officially to his first IVOA meeting in 2002 Creates Spanish VO interest network with funding from MEC Several projects funded (CONSOLIDER, Network)
8. Getting into the IVOA IVOA established in 2002 Enrique Solano goes officially to his first IVOA meeting in 2002 Creates Spanish VO interest network with funding from MEC Several projects funded (CONSOLIDER, Network)
9. Getting data & tools in the VO
10. A detour: AMIGA & the VO Analysis of the interstellar Medium of Isolated GAlaxies Multi-wavelength, multi-object study on isolated galaxies with strict isolation criteria Careful curation of data Very careful processing of new parameters from Group’s own observation programs and data reduction Literature table scanning Virtual Observatory table harvesting and parsing Emphasis on marrying astronomy and computer science, and buy-in of the VO E-SCIENCE USERS
11. A detour: AMIGA & the VO Analysis of the interstellar Medium of Isolated GAlaxies Multi-wavelength, multi-object study on isolated galaxies with strict isolation criteria Careful curation of data Very careful processing of new parameters from Group’s own observation programs and data reduction Literature table scanning Virtual Observatory table harvesting and parsing Emphasis on marrying astronomy and computer science, and buy-in of the VO E-SCIENCE DEVELOPERS!
12. A detour: AMIGA & the VO Project goal: providing a baseline for galaxy properties to compare with other environments Interaction-free sample, ideal for tracing HI infall: we can use CIG galaxies to detect the cosmic web Need for very sensitive telescopes able to resolve faint HI ➡ Square Kilometre Array & pathfinders PARTICIPATING IN SKA.TEL.SDP CONSORTIUM WE NEED TOOLS FOR OUR OWN SCIENCE ANALYSIS ⤷
13. A detour: AMIGA & the VO We built our own VO data-repository (now defunct, sorry!) We helped building the DSS-63 and TAPAS archives We developed the RADAMS data model in between Collaborating in the ImageDM (José E. Ruiz) don’t wait for things to be finished
14. If you want it, build it… ✓
15. …with a little help from my friends The Virtual Observatory is a community of people (apart from federated data and computation resources, of course!)
16. The VO helps you Astronomer: lots of interoperable data, easy way to query them Astro-Informatician: you can build the tool you want with Astronomers and Developers Developer: lots of interoperable (sometimes interchangeable) tools, toolkits, libraries… but you don’t need to build it on your own!
17. The VO helps you See the example of the ALMA Science Archive: Query core built by CADC, improved by ESO for the Catalog Facility Use of open source libraries for data transformation (voview, JavaScript, jQuery, Spring MVC…)
18. Who helped create the SVO? Those that wanted and could help: LAEFF: IUE Archive as the starting point Spanish thematic network Centres which were further ahead in the VO teaching those wishing to learn about the VO
19. …with a little help from my friends ?
20. Build on your strengths Do what you are most comfortable with
21. Build on your strengths Don’t do what you are not comfortable with
24. Home Welcome to the home page of the header archive of the IRAM-30m telescope. The Telescope Access for Public Archive System (TAPAS) provides a complete, homogeneous, and searchable database of the header information of all astronomical observations conducted at the IRAM 30m telescope. TAPAS was built in a collaborative effort between IRAM and IAA/CSIC. It is designed to be Virtual Observatory compliant. TAPAS contains more than 200 header variables for each observational scan, encompassing + information on the observing setup (source, frequency, observing mode, etc.), + information on the project (PI, Title, etc.), + the status of the system at the time of the observations (telescope, receiver, backend, weather, etc.), + and also the results of calibrations, of pointing and focus scans. At present, it contains header data taken between end of September 2009 and now. The data base will eventually be filled with earlier data. If you have used TAPAS facilities for your research, please include the following acknowledgment: "This research used the TAPAS header archive of the IRAM-30m telescope, which was created in collaboration with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía - CSIC, partially supported by Spanish MICINN DGI grant AYA2005- 07516-C02." Home Search Results News Policy Help About IRAM - IAA - CSIC TAPAS - Telescope Archive for Public Access System IRAM 30m Archive Login Password ok
25. Welcome to AstroGrid AstroGrid was the UK's Virtual Observatory developement project from 2001-2010. The AstroGrid project began in 2001 as part of the UK's government e-Science initiative, and proceeded in three phases. Following a short exploratory phase (late 2001), the original AstroGrid project (2002-4) centred on research and prototyping; the follow-on project (AstroGrid-2 : 2005-7) was the engineering and construction phase. The third phase (AstroGrid-3 : 2008-9) was an operations project. We launched working services and user software in April 2008. AstroGrid software and services are still used by astronomers all over the world on a daily basis. These static web pages reflect AstroGrid and its software at the time of its completion so be aware that some of what you find will not be current. To get up to date VO software try starting with the EuroVO or IVOA web pages. General Information The AstroGrid project involved four inter-related strands of work. Work with colleagues world-wide to construct agreed international standards and protocols. Constructing technical infrastructure software, for data centres and developers to deploy. Establishing and running working services, such the AstroGrid Registry, and various VOSpace fileservers. Constructing astronomical user software, and providing user support. The core AstroGrid work was funded by PPARC and by STFC. This core was enhanced by European Commission funding, as part of the AVO, VOTECH, DCA, and AIDA projects. The total funding over eight years totaled approximately £14M. AstroGrid website is hosted at the Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh - last updated: 15-Aug-2012 PROJECT INFO USER SOFTWARE SERVICE SOFTWARE RELATED SOFTWARE PROJECT RESOURCES
26. SVO strengths Archive services Theoretical services Data mining VO-enabling scientific workflows Reaching the community
27. ChiVO strengths Science network (REUNA) Growing astronomical community Growing software-enabled projects: ALMA, LSST Astronomical software developers my take!
28. ChiVO weaknesses Most of the facilities are not Chilean Their organisations can have their own agendas They might not even willing to share! but they might be convinced!
29. Build on your strengths ✓
30. Know thee, and thy neighbour Do what you can, and what they want
31. SVO community Most of the Spanish community works under the old paradigm: get raw data > reduce it > analyze it > publish Need to get to the community to know the VO use the VO Science with VO Workshops Build tools for emerging science Ph.D. courses on VO
32. Know thee, and thy neighbour ?
33. Conclusions There is no “right way”/single way to build a National Virtual Observatory What’s right is sharing with the community… consider astronomers, developers, and specially mixed profiles… consider what benefits them, and what they can contribute
34. Conclusions A National Virtual Observatory is never finished… Even if you can’t get direct funding for it… ChiVO is already doing many things well Go interoperate! ✓
35. Thank you! ¿Questions? jdsant@iaa.es