Category Archives: archives

NIRC2 Data Released Through the Keck Observatory Archive

Posted on May 4, 2012 by

This week, the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA) released data from its third instrument, and its first imaging instrument: the Near Infrared Camera 2 (NIRC2). Commissioned in 2001, it is used in imaging and spectroscopic modes, and is equipped with three … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Astronomy, High performance computing, archives, software maintenance, information sharing, exoplanets, software engineering, data archives, galaxies, W. M. Keck Observatory | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The VAO Community Day in Tucson

Posted on March 26, 2012 by

The Virtual Astronomical Observatory (VAO) held its latest community day in Tucson, AZ, on March 13, attended by nearly 50 members of the Tucson astronomical community. These community days are an important part of our professional outreach: we go on … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, cyberinfrastructure, High performance computing, information sharing, Journals, programming, social networking, Time domain astronomy, time series data, user communities, Virtual Observatory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Citizen Science: Contributions to Astronomy Research  

Posted on February 26, 2012 by

This is the title of an interesting paper by Carol Christian et al., in which they discuss the role of citizen science in modern astronomical research.  The authors adopt the definition of  citizen science as ” active involvement of a … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Cloud computing, cosmology, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, exoplanets, galaxies, galaxy formation, High performance computing, information sharing, Kepler, Milky Way, time series data, Transiting exoplanets | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XXI

Posted on December 3, 2011 by

This annual, international software conference was held in Paris, France, from November 6 through 11, and was attended by roughly 300 people. This year’s topics were: GPUs in Astronomy and Beyond Cloud Computing and Virtualization Statistical Data Analysis and Knowledge … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, astroinformatics, Astronomy, Cloud computing, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, GPU's, Grid Computing, High performance computing, information sharing, Parallelization, programming, software engineering, softwarte sustainability, TeraGrid, Time domain astronomy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Skywatchers Look to Cloud for Storing ‘Tsunami’ of Data

Posted on November 18, 2011 by

I was interviewed by Innovation News Daily for this feature on data management challenges in  astronomy, based on the paper I wrote with Steve Groom on “How Will Astronomy Archives Survive the Data Tsunami?.”  The piece is aimed at the computer … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Cloud computing, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, Grid Computing, High performance computing, information sharing, social networking, software engineering | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Will Astronomy Archives Survive the Data Tsunami?

Posted on October 27, 2011 by

This article by Steve Groom and myself was just published on-line in the Association for Computing Machinery Queue: How Will Astronomy Archives Survive the Data Tsunami? – ACM Queue In it, we describe the practices that can keep astronomy archives … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, astroinformatics, Astronomy, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, High performance computing, information sharing, Parallelization, programming, social networking, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Finding New Planets With Cloud Computing?

Posted on December 10, 2010 by

Surveys for Transiting Planets Planet finding is a heavy industry these days. The Kepler satellite (http://kepler.nasa.gov/), launched on 06 March 2009, is a NASA mission that uses high-precision photometry to search for transiting exoplanets around main sequence stars. The French … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Cloud computing, CoRoT, cyberinfrastructure, exoplanets, High performance computing, Kepler, Parallelization, time series data, Transiting exoplanets, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Preserving Data and the Data Conservancy

Posted on November 21, 2010 by

A report by the U.S. National Academies entitled “Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age” made this comment: “Research data and other information integral to publicly reported results should be publicly accessible… research data … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, cyberinfrastructure, Data Management, information sharing, Uncategorized, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Taking Wolfram Alpha For A Test Drive

Posted on November 12, 2010 by

Wolfram Alpha is, according to the website, the world’s first computational knowledge engine, and I have been kicking tires and taking her out for a spin. The user interface is as simple as Google’s: nothing but a text box where … Continue reading →

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One Model For Software Sustainability

Posted on June 12, 2010 by

Last week, I said I would start making some posts on software sustainability. This week I will talk about an approach to sustainable software architecture that has been successfully applied over a period of 10 years to software services at … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, astroinformatics, Astronomy, Data Management, software maintenance, software sustainability | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment