Category Archives: Astronomy

Software Training Discussion Session at .Astronomy 4

Posted on August 10, 2012 by astrocompute

The dotAstronomy 4 conference included a number of what are called “unconference” sessions, which are organized at the conference rather than as part of an agenda.  I organized such a session on how to provide software engineering training for scientists: … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, information sharing, Parallelization, programming, social media, social networking, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Adoption of Software by a User Community: The Montage Image Mosaic Engine

Posted on August 5, 2012 by astrocompute

This week’s post will be about building user communities, the topic of a paper I submitted for consideration for presentation at the Maintainable Software Practices in e-Science Workshop at the  8th IEEE International Conference on eScience 2012 in Chicago (Oct 8-12). … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, astronomy surveys, education, High performance computing, image mosaics, information sharing, Parallelization, social media, social networking, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, Uncategorized, user communities, visualization, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Exploring the Universe with Machine Learning

Posted on July 27, 2012 by astrocompute

A short while ago, I attended a webinar on the above topic by Alex Gray and Nick Ball. The traditional approach to analytics involves identifying which collections of data or collections of information follow sets of rules. Machine learning (ML) … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Cloud computing, computer videos, cyberinfrastructure, Data Management, galaxies, galaxy formation, Grid Computing, information sharing, knowledge based discovery, Machine learning, Parallelization, programming, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Science: It’s Universal

Posted on July 20, 2012 by astrocompute

This video was produced and directed by Amanda Bauer at the .Astronomy 4 meeting. Astronomers giving their thoughts on what science is and why they do it. <p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/45711303″>Science: It’s Universal</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user611471″>amanda bauer</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p> Read about … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Career Advice, careers, computer videos, education, information sharing, social media, social networking | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Report From The Front Lines of .Astronomy 4

Posted on July 20, 2012 by astrocompute

Last week, I had the great pleasure of attending the  .Astronomy 4 meeting in Heidelberg, Germany. This was the first time I have attended this annual meeting, and I had the honor delivering one of the keynote addresses, on “How … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, citzen science, Cloud computing, data archives, education, High performance computing, information sharing, programming, social media, social networking, software engineering, software sustainability, user communities, visualization, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SPIE Conference: Distributed Agile Software Development in Astronomy; the SKA Example

Posted on July 4, 2012 by astrocompute

I am attending the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands (July 1-6, 2012). One of the most interesting talks I have attended so far, in the Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy conference, was given jointly by Rebecca … Continue reading →

Posted in agile development, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, cyberinfrastructure, Data Management, High performance computing, information sharing, Parallelization, programming, SKA, software engineering, software maintenance | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Creating a Scientific Visualization

Posted on June 14, 2012 by astrocompute

Here is a very useful video from the Advanced Visualization Laboratory of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) on the process of creating a scientific visualization, in this case a fly-through movie of a molecular cloud, detailed enough to … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, computer videos, information sharing, social media, visualization | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An Example of Cloud Computing in Astronomy Education and Training

Posted on June 2, 2012 by astrocompute

In a number of previous posts, I have described how cloud computing can be effective in supporting “high-burst” or one-time computing needs. Generally, the cloud is too expensive to support science services on a 24/7 basis. I recently learned of … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Cloud computing, education, ESA, Gaia, High performance computing, information sharing, Milky Way, software engineering | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New Astronomy Projects Take Up The Virtual Observatory

Posted on May 25, 2012 by astrocompute

This week, I have been attending the semi-annual IVOA meeting in Urban-Champaign, Illinois. One of the most interesting series of talks was on how three new observational projects in their commissioning phase are using  Virtual Observatory (VO) services as part … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, astronomy surveys, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, High performance computing, information sharing, programming, software maintenance, Uncategorized, Virtual Observatory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

How To Use Cloud Computing To Do Astronomy

Posted on May 14, 2012 by astrocompute

This is a talk I gave jointly with my colleague Ewa Deelman (ISI, USC) at Caltech on May 9. I have had a number of requests to post the slides, so I will do so here:  Cloud IPAC May 9 gbb … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Cloud computing, cyberinfrastructure, earthquake science, exoplanets, High performance computing, image mosaics, information sharing, Parallelization, programming, software engineering, software sustainability, TeraGrid, time series data, Transiting exoplanets, XSEDE | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment