National Virtual Observatory

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National Center for Supercomputing Applications

NVO Development and Operations at NCSA

What is the National Virtual Observatory?

The National Virtual Observatory (NVO) is an NSF-funded project to build an environment for doing astronomical research over the network. Taking advantage of all of the existing on-line astronomical archives and databases from around the world, it provides tools for finding, collecting, integrating, and analyzing data remotely. The infrastructure that enables data from different archives to be analyzed together is made possible by standard protocols and formats for data exchange. The NVO project works with international partners through the International Virtual Observatory Alliance to develop these standards and propogate their use by participating data providers.

Where to learn more:

• The National Virtual Observatory Home Page
• NVO Development Site and Software Repository
• More on the origins of the NVO.
• About resource registries and the the publishing process.

What NVO activity is happening at NCSA?

• Resource Registries for Discovery.
• Standard Metadata
• Services to support Secure Single Sign-on
• Standards Development
• Support for Standard protocols via the NCSA Astronomy Digital Image Library

We have also contributed to protocols for data access and integration of grid-based processing.

Services Provided by NCSA

• NCSA Publishing Registry
• IVOA Registry of Registries
• Service Validaters:
  • Simple Cone Search
  • Simple Image Access
• VO Login Services

VO Publications with Contributions from NCSA

IVOA Documents

• Plante, R., Linde, T., Williams, R., and Noddle, K. 2007, IVOA Identifiers, Version 1.12, IVOA Recommendation, 14 March 2007.
• Plante, R. Benson, K., Graham, M., Greene, G., Harrison, P., Lemson, G., Linde, T., Rixon, G, Stebe, A., and the Registry Working Group, 2007 VOResource: an XML Encoding Schema for Resource Metadata Version 1.03, an IVOA Recommendation
• Hanisch, R. and the Registry Working Group 2007, Resource Metadata for the Virtual Observatory Version 1.12, an IVOA Recommendation, 02 March 2007.
• Benson, K., Auden, E., Graham, M., Greene, G. Hill, M., Linde, T., Morris, D., O'Mullane, W., Plante, R., Rixon, G., Andrews, K. 2006, IVOA Registry Interfaces Version 1.00, an IVOA Working Draft.
• Williams, R., Hanisch, R., Szalay, A., and Plante, R., Simple Cone Search, Version 1.03, an IVOA Recommendation
• Tody, D. and Plante, R. 2004, Simple Image Access Specification, Version 1.0, an IVOA Working Draft.
• Rixon, G., Graham, M., and the Grid and Web Services Working Group, IVOA Single-Sign-On Profile: Authentication Mechanisms Version 1.01, an IVOA Recommendation.

Other IVOA Documents:

• Plante, Raymond, 2007, The Registry of Registries, Version 1.00, an IVOA Note.
• Plante, R., Graham, M., Greene, G., Hanisch, B., Lee, J., O'Mullane, W., Williamson, R. 2004, Lessons Learned Using the VOResource XML Schemas in the NVO Version 1.00, an IVOA Note.

Selected Publications

• supercomputing
• adass

Other Documents

• Plante, Raymond 2008, How to Publish to the NVO, an NVO Document.

Developed with the support of the Nationa l Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement AST0122449 with The Johns Hopki ns University. The NVO is a member of the International Vi rtual Observatory Alliance.

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