AstroGrid / Queen's University of Belfast Workshop 29-30 March 2007

AstroGrid and the Astrophysics Research Centre of the Queen's University of Belfast are holding a two day workshop to introduce the Belfast astronomy research community to the potential of emerging Virtual Observatory capabilities in supporting scientific research.

Agenda

Workshop Location

The workshop will be held at Queen's University of Belfast. Workgroup session locations (all three within walking distance to the Physics and Astronomy Building - see here for travel details.

• Thursday morning group sessions: Physics and Astronomy board room
• Thursday afternoon and Friday splinter groups: Robert Ryans to arrange rooms for the 3 science groups
  • Group A - Eduardo (S051)
  • Group A - Nic (S037)
  • Group B - Elizabeth and Silvia (F044)
  • Group C - Anita and John (F034)

Workshop dinner

On Thursday to be arranged - S. Smartt

Accomodation

A list of nearby guest houses and hotels.

• Malone Lodge Hotel: (£~70): large hotel
• Camera guest house: Smaller B&B ~£50l
• Bienvenue Guest House: Smaller B&B ~£40-50l

Science Projects

We will divide into 3 groups to work on projects based on science goals. These should be specific problems which can be tackled using AstroGrid. The idea is that each group will decide on a science problem that they would like to work on, and they will be assisted by AstroGrid scientists and developers during the first day afternoon and second day morning. The afternoon sessions of the last day will then give each workgroup a chance to demonstrate what they have achieved!

Group A - Supernovae and massive stars (Group leader: Stephen Smartt : s.smartt AT qub.ac.uk )

Group B - Solar system (Group leader: Alan Fitzsimmons : a.fitzsimmons AT qub)

Group C - Solar (Group leader: Mihalis Mathioudakis : m.mathioudakis AT qub)

Pre-Workshop checklist

Astrogrid requires the Java Runtime Environment to be installed on your computer (version 5.0). If you do not have it already, please download it here and install it.

AstroGrid software will work with Linux, Windows XP or Mac OSX.

To access AstroGrid services we will use the Workbench. It would be useful to check that you can run it on your computer. Go to the Workbench download page, and either click on the 'Launch' link for Workbench (this installs and launches Workbench with one click using Java Webstart - answer Yes or Install at security warnings) or install the standalone version (click on 'installer' and follow the instructions).

On QUB linux cluster type: java -jar /usr/local/astrogrid/workbench-2007.1.1-app.jar

If you experience any problems with the default version of java (currently 1.6.0 at QUB) it would be worth trying: /software/local/java/jre1.5.0_02/bin/java -jar workbench-2007.1.1-app.jar

We'll be giving all attendees an astrogrid user account - details via email. Also, we'll be setting up a wiki username account for all attendees before the meeting, please use http://wiki.astrogrid.org/bin/view/TWiki/TWikiRegistration to set your password.

For systems questions/security advice etc: contact Systems manager : Robert Ryans (r DOT ryans AT qub)

Links to Helper Applications

Helper applications are launched using Java Webstart (which is part of Java). Click on the links below to launch the applications - answer yes at security warnings.

• Topcat
• Aladin

Astrogrid Help Pages

Help pages for using AstroGrid are at http://www2.astrogrid.org/science/documentation. Please use these pages rather than help links built into the Workbench.

Quick links to main help docs:

• AstroScope
• HelioScope
• Redshift Maker
• Colour cutter
• Solar Movie Maker
• Task Launcher
• Query Builder

Tutorial Worksheets

• Data access worksheet
• Solar and STP worksheet
• IPHAS data access

Useful Resources

• For learning python try
  • "Python scripting for computational science" by Hans P. Langtangen (link).
  • "Using Python for Interactive Data Analysis" by STSCI (link to pdf).
  • "Beginners Guide to Python" (link to web page)

Glossary:

A few buzzwords you might hear during the workshop ...

• VOQL: Virtual Observatory Query Language
• VOTable: a tabular data exchange standard
• DAL: Data Access Layer
• SIA: Simple Image Access
• SSA: Simple Spectral Access
• UCD: Uniform Content Descriptor

Find lots more at http://www.ivoa.net !

Attendance

-- SilviaDalla - 02 Feb 2007