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BinX and Astronomy

BinX and Astronomy. Bob Mann Institute for Astronomy and National e-Science Centre. BinX and Astronomy. The Virtual Observatory concept Astronomical data formats FITS and VOTable Possible Use Cases for BinX in the VO Further requirements. The Virtual Observatory.

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BinX and Astronomy

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  1. BinX and Astronomy Bob Mann Institute for Astronomy and National e-Science Centre

  2. BinX and Astronomy • The Virtual Observatory concept • Astronomical data formats • FITS and VOTable • Possible Use Cases for BinX in the VO • Further requirements

  3. The Virtual Observatory • Federation of the world’s significant astronomical data resources, plus the tools required to exploit those data scientifically • Based on web (later, Grid) services • Coordinated projects around the world • UK: AstroGrid • Forced discussion of interoperability issues

  4. Astronomical data formats

  5. FITS – Flexible Image Transport System • Near-universal in astronomy • Extended to handle non-image data • FITS binary table preferred format for transporting large amounts of tabular data • Only used in astronomy – poor leverage of generic software • Difficult to stream FITS data – no. of rows has to be specified

  6. VOTable • New XML standard for tabular data • Design allows easy translation from FITS • Usual XML advantages… • Flexibility, validation, streaming, etc • …and disadvantages • Verbosity – serious problem in astronomy

  7. Three flavours of VOTable • TABLEDATA • Metadata and data in fully tagged XML • FITS • Metadata in XML, data in external FITS file, linked from VOTable document • BINARY • Metadata in XML, data encoded in binary format and included in VOTable doc

  8. How can BinX help the VO?

  9. Conversion between FITS binary tables and VOTables • Lots of legacy FITS data files around • First step in eDIKT BinX testbed • Conversion to TABLEDATA works • what about FITS & BINARY? • Can also strip metadata from headers of non-bintable extensions (e.g. images)

  10. Aiding data transport in the VO Site 1 WAN Site 2 Database 2 Database 1 VOTable VOTable Application BinX VOTable Binary BinX

  11. Delivering SAX events with BinX? Site 1 WAN Site 2 Database 2 Database 1 VOTable VOTable Application BinX SAX events Binary BinX

  12. Integrating BinX and databases? Site 1 WAN Site 2 Database 2 Database 1 BinX BinX SAX events Application SAX events Binary BinX

  13. Querying BinX’s implied XML representation with XQuery? Site 1 WAN Site 2 Database 2 Database 1 BinX BinX SAX events XQuery Application XQuery SAX events Binary BinX

  14. Summary • The requirements of the VO and the aims of BinX seem well matched • Initial results from the astronomy testbed are encouraging • Astronomy would benefit from a number of the possible extensions to BinX: • Java version – aid integration with VO • Support for SAX as well as DOM • XQuery on implied XML representation

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