Tag Archives: information sharing

From The Front Lines of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016

Posted on July 15, 2016 by astrocompute

I attended the SPIE meeting on Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation in Edinburgh, Scotland from June 26 through July 1, and I am sharing my views on the conference presentations. Approximately 2,000 astronomers, software engineers and instrumentation specialists crowded the Edinburgh … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, computer modeling, cyberinfrastructure, Data Management, databases, Gemini, Grid Computing, High performance computing, informatics, information sharing, programming, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, TMT, user communities, Virtual Observatory, visualization, W. M. Keck Observatory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Astronomy Software (1986)

Posted on April 5, 2016 by astrocompute

I admit that I have soft spot for these old videos. This one is from 1986. Now, the interfaces may seem primitive, yet the calculations are quite sophisticated – these types of programs are just as useful today.  

Posted in Astronomy, computer videos, Computing, computing videos, History of Computing!, information sharing, programming, Scientific computing | Tagged , , , , , , | 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 Pegasus Workflow Manager and the Discovery of Gravitational Waves

Posted on February 19, 2016 by astrocompute

We have all heard so much about the wonderful discovery of Gravitational Waves – and with just cause! In today’s post, I want to give a shout-out to the Pegasus Workflow Manager, one of the crucial pieces of software used in … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, Black Holes, Computing, cyberinfrastructure, Gravitational waves, High performance computing, informatics, LIGO, Operations, Parallelization, programming, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, workflows | 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

Exploring the dark universe with supercomputers: article in symmetry magazine

Posted on January 19, 2016 by astrocompute

The other day, I accidentally came across the on-line magazine symmetry (yes, it’s lower case!) which posts articles in the fields of particle physics and related topics, such as dark matter, dark energy, neutrinos, all written for the educated layperson.  I was … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, computer modeling, Computing, cosmology, cyberinfrastructure, dark energy, DES, galaxy formation, GPU's, Grid Computing, High Energy Physics, High performance computing, informatics, LSST, Parallelization, programming, Scientific computing, simulations, software engineering | 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

VO Interfaces at the CSIRO ASKAP Science Data Archive (CASDA).

Posted on December 8, 2015 by astrocompute

This week, I am reporting on a presentation I heard by James Dempsey of CSIRO at the IVOA meeting in Sydney, November 2015. You can download the presentation at the meeting site here. ASKAP is the Australian SKA Pathfinder, a … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, ASKAP, astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, High performance computing, informatics, information sharing, Observatories, Scientific computing, SKA, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, Virtual Observatory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A New Data Archive for Gemini – Fast, Cheap and in the Cloud

Posted on November 20, 2015 by astrocompute

I must congratulate my colleague Paul Hirst at Gemini – he is to my knowledge the first astronomer to use “cheap” and “cloud” in the same title. His talk on building a new archive for the Gemini telescopes was presented … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, Cloud computing, Computing, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data formats, Data Management, FITS, Gemini, informatics, information sharing, metadata management, Observatories, Operations, programming, Python, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, telescopes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment