Virtual Observatory Tools
A variety of Virtual Observatory services and tools exists through various Virtual Observatory projects across the globe. In this section, you can find VO-compatible applications, tools and data archives to do science. These are mostly web-form interface services and/or downloadable Java applications. For these to work Java Runtime Environment (JRE) should be installed on your computer. Please make sure that you are using right version of Java. If you don't have Java or the right version installed, then either speak to your system administrator, or download it from the Sun Java website http://java.com/en/. These VO applications and tools can be divided into following categories:
If you would like to know more, please write to barway(at)saao.ac.za. |
Data Archives
Data Archives | |
VizieR provides access to the most complete library of published astronomical catalogues and data tables available on line. Query tools allow the user to select relevant data tables and to extract and format records matching given criteria. | |
Simbad Astronomical database which provides basic data, cross-identifications, bibliography and measurements for astronomical objects outside the solar system. | |
NED The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) provides a multi-wavelength fusion of data for millions of objects outside the Milky Way galaxy. | |
SDSS DR7 Sloan Digital Sky Survey - A major research project dedicated to producing a systematic map of a quarter of the sky, producing new catalogues for deep-sky. | |
2MASS Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) - research project dedicated to producing a systematic map of the entire sky in near-infrared. | |
ESO data archive ESO observational data can be requested through this facility after the proprietary period by the astronomical community. | |
MAST The Multimission Archive at STScI is a project to support and provide to the astronomical community a variety of astronomical data archives, with the primary focus on scientifically related data sets in the optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared parts of the spectrum. | |
2dFGRS The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) is a spectroscopic survey and spectra is obtained for 245591 objects, mainly galaxies. | |
HyperLeda The extragalactic database. Photometry, kinematics spectrophotometry, archive of fits data. | |
HLA The Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA) is designed to optimize science from the Hubble Space Telescope by providing online, enhanced Hubble products and advanced browsing capabilities. | |
Data Discovery Tools
Data Discovery Tools | |
SkyAlert SkyAlert collects and distributes astronomical events in near-real time. | |
VOPlatform VOPlatform is a tool that provides users with an environment in which to place their frequently used VO tools and datasets, along with other resources such as documents, web links etc. The application has been developed in Java, and acts on data available in the VO Standard VOTable format. | |
VOData Query and access VO image, catalog and table data available through simple forms-based interface. This tool is part of VO-CLI tools which are intended to be run on a user's desktop as Command Line Interface. VO-CLI tools provide a Unix-like command-line interface and can be used from the desktop or in a scripting environment. | |
VODirectory Search for VO collections and services available through simple forms-based interface. This tool is part of VO-CLI tools which are intended to be run on a user's desktop as Command Line Interface. VO-CLI tools provide a Unix-like command-line interface and can be used from the desktop or in a scripting environment. | |
VOSesame Resolve object names to coordinates available through simple forms-based interface. This tool is part of VO-CLI tools which are intended to be run on a user's desktop as Command Line Interface. VO-CLI tools provide a Unix-like command-line interface and can be used from the desktop or in a scripting environment. | |
VirGO VirGO is the next generation Visual Browser for the ESO Science Archive Facility. VirGO provides an easy access to millions of raw frames in a visual and intuitive way. Its main feature is the performance of real-time access and graphical display of a large number of observations by showing instrumental footprints and image previews, and the selection and filtering for subsequent retrieval. | |
VODesktop A desktop application for working with the Virtual Observatory. It can explore data resources, query remote catalogs, and construct workflows to automate tasks. | |
Datascope A Web Service for discovering and exploring data in the Virtual Observatory from archives and data centres around the world. | |
Open SkyQuery It allows user to cross-match astronomical catalogs and select subsets of catalogs with a general and powerful query language. Users can also import a personal catalog of objects and cross-match it against selected databases. | |
Aladin An interactive software sky atlas allowing the user to visualize digitized images of any part of the sky, to superimpose entries from astronomical catalogs. | |
SkyView A Virtual Observatory for generating images of any part of the sky at wavelengths in all regimes from Radio to Gamma-Ray. | |
NVO Registry A global yellow-pages for astronomy which demonstrates how a wide variety of astronomical resources and services can be located. | |
VIM VIM (Visual Integration & Mining) is a tool for investigating multiple sources (or sky positions) simultaneously. | |
VOEventNet VOEventNet enables rapid observations of the dynamic night sky. VOEventNet gathers streams of astronomical alerts and reports in a common format, so that both people and robotic systems can get the alerts quickly enough to respond with follow-up observations. | |
Analysis Tools
Analysis Tools | |
ARCHANGEL It allows astronomers to do surface photometry of galaxies. | |
VOStat It allows astronomers to use both simple and sophisticated statistical routines on large datasets. | |
WCSFIXER It allows astronomers to improve or derive the WCS solution for an image. | |
WESIX It allows astronomers to perform source extraction and object identification by detecting objects in images and matching them with objects in the major survey catalogs. | |
Montage It allows astronomers to make mosaics from 2MASS, DPOSS, or SDSS images and returns science-grade mosaics that preserve fluxes and astrometry and rectify backgrounds to a common level. | |
VOSpec A multiwavelength spectra analysis tool, with access to both Spectral services and Theoretical Spectral services. | |
Specview It is a tool for 1-D spectral visualization and analysis of astronomical spectra. | |
SPLAT A spectra analysis tool. | |
Euro3D It allows astronomers to deal with datasets in the Euro3D FITS format. | |
NVO Spectrum Services This service allows a large, distributed database of spatial object spectra and a collection of tools for common spectrum processing tasks. | |
Yafit An SED fitting tool. Although it could be used in other contexts, it is mainly intended for fitting observed photometric data to calculated model spectra. | |
GOSSIP A tool which allows astronomers to fit the electro-magnetic emission of an object (the SED, Spectral Energy Distribution) against synthetic models. | |
EZ (Easy-Z) A tool which allows to estimate redshifts for extragalactic objects. | |
Plotting Tools
Plotting Tools | |
Topcat An interactive graphical viewer and editor for tabular data. It understands a number of different astronomically important formats (including FITS and VOTable) and more formats can be added. | |
VisIVO A visualisation and analysis software for astrophysical data. VisIVO can handle both observational and theoretical data. | |
VOPlot A tool for visualizing astronomical data. VOPlot is available as a stand alone version, which is to be installed on the user's machine, or as a web-based version fully integrated with the VizieR database. | |
VOMegaPlot It has been specifically optimized for handling large number of points (in the range of millions). It has the same look and feel as VOPlot and both these tools have certain common functionality. | |
STILTS It deals with the processing of tabular data; the package has been designed for, but is not restricted to, astronomical tables such as object catalogues. | |
VOConvert A tool for converting files from one format to another. It supports following file format conversions: (1) ASCII to VOTable (2) FITS to VOTable and (3) VOTable to ASCII. | |
Last updated: 12 Jun 2009
