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”
   

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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!
   

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3. If you want it, build it…
   But then you need to work a lot!
   

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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
   

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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)
   

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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)
   

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9. Getting data & tools in the VO
   

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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
    

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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!
    

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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
    ⤷
    

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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
    

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14. If you want it, build it…
    ✓
    

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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!)
    

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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!
    

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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…)
    

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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
    

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19. …with a little help from my friends
    ?
    

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20. Build on your strengths
    Do what you are most comfortable with
    

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21. Build on your strengths
    Don’t do what you are not comfortable with
    

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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
    

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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
    

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26. SVO strengths
    Archive services
    
    Theoretical services
    
    Data mining
    
    VO-enabling scientific workflows
    
    Reaching the community
    

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27. ChiVO strengths
    Science network (REUNA)
    
    Growing astronomical community
    
    Growing software-enabled projects: ALMA, LSST
    
    Astronomical software developers
    my take!
    

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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!
    

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29. Build on your strengths
    ✓
    

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30. Know thee, and thy neighbour
    Do what you can, and what they want
    

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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
    

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32. Know thee, and thy neighbour
    ?
    

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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
    

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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!
    ✓
    

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35. Thank you!
    ¿Questions?
    jdsant@iaa.es
    

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