Preliminary Feedback from Radionet/AstroGrid workshop

AgRadionetWorkshopDec06

Science feedback

• Need Vizier directly accessible to AstroScope and/or ADQL!
  • Also ability to import directly into TopCat from URL
    • You can. Just type the URL into the load dialogue box, or on the command line. -- MarkTaylor
• Need advice/tools for efficient comparisons of large (part) catalogues
  • A and B
  • A not B (etc.)
  • When to use FITS, etc.
  • Could comparisons be done piecemeal, i.e. on the fly as the largest catalog is being loaded?
    • If you use STILTS this is done where possible. -- MarkTaylor
• Better error messages with pointers to documentation
• Can easily get too many windows to manage!

Radio Publishing

Feedback

• Publishing catalogues which are organised in multiple tables: this makes it difficult for the astronomer to construct a query.
  • One solution is to merge into one table
  • Can someone explain about 'Views', please? NB need MySQL 5 or similar.
• Need to be able to retrieve tabular data with informative column names and better metadata
  • Partly a developers' problem, to return original column names to user even if shorter version used internally?
  • Data providers should improve metadata, units, UCDs...
• ParselTongue^?/radio data:
  • Possible use of matplotlib for plots
  • Provide recipes for printing out diagnostic plots including grey/colourscale, contours, uv and calibration plots etc.
  • Note that once in the VO world, Aladin and GAIA can be used for some or all of plotting contours over grayscale, cube visualisation etc. - but don;t fully understand Jy/beam

Ongoing work

• Publish prototype of GMRT project catalogue using DSA
• Publish Splatalogue (catalogue of astronomically observable spectral lines especially in (sub-)mm)
  • Make SLAP server next
• Publish WSRT catalogue (observing log?)
• Pipeline for CORNISH survey
• parselTongue/VLA pipeline compatibility
  • adapt y2k procedures
• Making the WSRT pipeline work as a CEA application
• Publishing the ALMA Catalogue (local tests at present)

-- AnitaRichards - 11 Dec 2006