HEASARC

IN THE

The National Virtual Observatory has adopted standards to facilitate the dissemination of astronomical data. Data can now be acquired using protocols which allow users to retrieve data in VOTable formatted xml files. This system provides an alternative to data extraction via conventional astronomical catalog interfaces. The HEASARC supports these VO standards and is a major player in the national and international VO community. Users may now query the HEASARC's catalogs using VO-enabled services and specialized tools. This page describes how to get to the HEASARC VO-enabled services and provides information on other HEASARC VO activities.

HEASARC VO-enabled Services

Getting HEASARC Browse Catalogs in VOTable format

All HEASARC Browse Catalogs are available as formatted VOTable documents. Use http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/W3Browse/getvotable.pl?name=xxx as the base URL where "xxx" is the shortname of the catalog.

The VOTable format can also be chosen in the HEASARC's Browse system. VOTables can be read and manipulated by powerful utilities like TOPCAT and VOPlot.

Getting HEASARC Catalogs Using the Cone Search Protocol

All HEASARC Browse Catalogs are available through the Cone search protocol. The result of a search is a table that contains metadata on a source. Use "http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/vo/cone/coneGet.pl?table=xxx&" as the base url where "xxx" is the shortname of the catalog (more info).

SkyView Surveys Using SIAP

All SkyView surveys can be accessed through the Simple Image Access Protocol (SIAP). Use the base URL "http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/vo/sia.pl?survey=xxx&" where "xxx" is a string or substring present in the survey name
(more info).

Finding HEASARC Services

The HEASARC publishes information about its services using the Open Archive Initiative. The HEASARC provides OAI using the OAI-PMH2 library. You can also search VO registries for HEASARC services at ST ScI, Carnivore, ESAVO, and Astrogrid.

HEASARC VO Services

Portal

The NVO portal consists of a suite of Web and CLI tasks which facilitate data discovery in the Virtual Observatory. These tools allow users to find data, manipulate and filter tables, extract data near a single source or a list of targets and combine information from multiple datasets. For more information on portal services please visit the portal page.

DataScope

DataScope is a Virtual Observatory discovery agent and browser that allows astronomers to easily discover information available on a given source or location.

VO-enabled SkyView in a JAR File

Users can build and customize their own SkyView application using this downloadable JAR. New surveys can be added for any SIA-enabled archive.

VO Monitor

The VO Monitor lets users find the status of a VO service. We try to provide the status of as many services as possible but we do not test all services. Instead, we only test a representative subset of services for each VO host.

VO Notification Service

The VO Notification Service allows users to post a note on services that are scheduled to be down or maintained. The note added through this interface will then appear on the VO Monitor home page.

HEASARC Support for the NVO Summer School

HEASARC helps develop the curriculum and software for the NVO Summer school.

Last modified: Tuesday, 20-May-2008 14:06:39 EDT