Category Archives: Uncategorized

Free the Science: One Scholarly Society’s bold vision for open access and why it matters now more than ever

Posted on February 22, 2017 by astrocompute

This is a repost of a very interesting article by Ellen Finnie in  the IO:In The Open Blog. Ellen is a member of the ECS Group of Advisory Librarians (EGALs). The Electrochemical Society, a small nonprofit scholarly society founded in 1902, has … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart (1968)

Posted on March 1, 2016 by astrocompute

If you have never seen this, I recommend it.  Douglas Engelbart’s December 9, 1968, extraordinarily prescient demonstration of experimental computer technologies that are now ubiquitous. The live demonstration featured the introduction of the computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word … Continue reading →

Posted in computer modeling, computer videos, Computing, computing videos, cyberinfrastructure, History of Computing!, information sharing, Scientific computing, software engineering, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The SAMI Data Archive: A Prototype of An Archive of the Future?

Posted on February 10, 2016 by astrocompute

Astronomy data sets are not simply exploding in size – they are exploding in complexity too. Witness the data sets obtained from integral-field spectroscopy (IFS).  While the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral-field spectrograph (SAMI) survey has exceeded measurements of 1,000 galaxies, surveys such … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Computing, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data formats, Data Management, Data mining, databases, FITS, HDF5, High performance computing, informatics, information sharing, Open Source, Python, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Does An Astronomer Become A Data Scientist?

Posted on January 29, 2016 by astrocompute

I have been asked this question by several junior colleagues, so I thought my answer might be valuable to a broader audience. In particular, these young scientists were keen to learn how their skills might be transferable to another field. … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, Career Advice, careers, computer modeling, computing videos, Data Management, Data mining, Data Science, databases, High performance computing, informatics, information sharing, programming, R, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, statistical analysis, statistics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SciCoder Presents: Developing Larger Software Projects

Posted on January 4, 2016 by astrocompute

I am here at the 227th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Kissimmee, Florida. In the past few years, these semi-annual meetings have offered professional development classes, and many of these are in the area of software engineering … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, informatics, information sharing, programming, Python, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The 2015 Sagan Exoplanet Summer Workshop – Exoplanetary System Demographics: Theory and Observations

Posted on August 25, 2015 by astrocompute

Every Summer, the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI) hosts the Sagan Workshop, which sets out to advance scientific and technical understanding of the objectives of the NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program, and is aimed primarily at early career scientists. This year, the topic … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, computer modeling, computer videos, Computing, computing videos, exoplanets, informatics, information sharing, Kepler, software engineering, telescopes, Time domain astronomy, time series data, Transiting exoplanets, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s the Difference Between Cluster, Grid and Cloud Computing?

Posted on June 2, 2015 by astrocompute

After my last post on introductory videos on cloud computing, I was asked if there were videos that explained the difference between Cluster, Grid and Cloud Computing. Here is a very good one by Prof. Ajit Pal, Department of Computer Science … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Cloud computing, computer videos, Computing, computing videos, cyberinfrastructure, Grid Computing, High performance computing, information sharing, Parallelization, programming, Scientific computing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Palomar Transient Factory: High Quality Realtime Data Processing in a Cost-Constrained Environment

Posted on May 5, 2015 by astrocompute

This is the title of a paper by Surace et al. (2015) currently available on astro-ph and presented as a paper at ADASS XXIV in October 2014. The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is an example of a cost-constrained project that is … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, High performance computing, informatics, information sharing, Observatories, Operations, Parallelization, programming, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, Uncategorized, user communities | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Montage Mosaics The Pillars of Creation!

Posted on May 4, 2015 by astrocompute

I posted this on the Montage blog  the other day. A number of readers suggested that because the images looked spectacular, I should repost on Astronomy Computing Today.  The Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (M16) remain one of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Tools For Astronomical Big Data

Posted on March 12, 2015 by astrocompute

This week, I attended the Tools for Astronomical Big Data Workshop, held in Tucson from March 9 -11 and sponsored by NOAO. Over 100 practitioners gathered to “survey the present state of the art in addressing the challenges of conducting … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Catalogs, Cloud computing, cyberinfrastructure, Data Management, Data mining, databases, DBMS, Grid Computing, High performance computing, image mosaics, informatics, information sharing, Montage, Observatories, Parallelization, programming, Scientific computing, SDSS, social networking, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, Uncategorized, user communities, visualization, XSEDE | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment