Download or read book Astrometry With Digital Sky Surveys From SDSS to LSST written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major advances in our understanding of the Universe have historically come from dramatic improvements in our ability to accurately measure astronomical quantities. The astrometric observations obtained by modern digital sky surveys are enabling unprecedentedly massive and robust studies of the kinematics of the Milky Way. For example, the astrometric data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), together with half a century old astrometry from the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS), have enabled the construction of a catalog that includes absolute proper motions as accurate as 3 mas/year for about 20 million stars brighter than V=20, and for 80,000 spectroscopically confirmed quasars which provide exquisite error assessment. We discuss here several ongoing studies of Milky Way kinematics based on this catalog. The upcoming next-generation surveys will maintain this revolutionary progress. For example, we show using realistic simulations that the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will measure proper motions accurate to 1 mas/year to a limit 4 magnitude fainter than possible with SDSS and POSS catalogs, or with the Gaia survey. LSST will also obtain geometric parallaxes with accuracy similar to Gaia's at its faint end (0.3 mas at V=20), and extend them to V=24 with an accuracy of 3 mas. We discuss the impact that these LSST measurements will have on studies of the Milky Way kinematics, and potential synergies with the Gaia survey.
Download or read book Managing Astronomy Research Data Data Practices in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Projects written by Ashley Elizabeth Sands and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ground-based astronomy sky surveys are massive, decades-long investments in scientific data collection. Stakeholders expect these datasets to retain scientific value well beyond the lifetime of the sky survey. However, the necessary investments in knowledge infrastructures for managing sky survey data are not yet in place to ensure the long-term management and exploitation of these scientific data. How are sky survey data perceived and managed, by whom, and what are the implications for the infrastructures necessary to sustain the long-term value of data? This dissertation used semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and ethnographic fieldwork to explain how perspectives on data management differ among the stakeholder populations of two major sky surveys: the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Perspectives on sky survey data cluster into two categories: "data as a process" is where data are perceived in terms of the practices and contexts surrounding data production; and "data as a product" is where data are perceived as objective representations of reality, divorced from their production context. Analysis reveals these different perspectives result from stakeholders' differing data management responsibilities throughout the research life cycle, as reflected through their professional role, career stage, and level of astronomy education. These results were used to construct a data management life cycle model for ground-based astronomy sky surveys. Stakeholders involved in day-to-day construction, operations, and processing activities perceive data as a process because they are intimately familiar with how the data are produced. In contrast, sky survey leaders perceive data as a product due to their roles as liaisons to external stakeholders. During the proposal stage, leaders must present the data as objective and accurate to secure financial support; during data release, leaders must attract researchers to trust the data for scientific use. The tendency of sky survey leaders to regard data as a product leads them, and other stakeholders, to undervalue workforces, funding, and the other knowledge infrastructures necessary to sustain the value of scientific data. Planning for long-term data management must include stakeholders who view data as a process as well as those who view data as a product.
Download or read book A Giant Step From Milli to Micro Arcsecond Astrometry IAU S248 written by International Astronomical Union. Symposium and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-08-21 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: State-of-the-art review of the growing field of astrometry, for researchers and graduate students.
Download or read book New Worlds New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-02-04 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Driven by discoveries, and enabled by leaps in technology and imagination, our understanding of the universe has changed dramatically during the course of the last few decades. The fields of astronomy and astrophysics are making new connections to physics, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Based on a broad and comprehensive survey of scientific opportunities, infrastructure, and organization in a national and international context, New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics outlines a plan for ground- and space- based astronomy and astrophysics for the decade of the 2010's. Realizing these scientific opportunities is contingent upon maintaining and strengthening the foundations of the research enterprise including technological development, theory, computation and data handling, laboratory experiments, and human resources. New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics proposes enhancing innovative but moderate-cost programs in space and on the ground that will enable the community to respond rapidly and flexibly to new scientific discoveries. The book recommends beginning construction on survey telescopes in space and on the ground to investigate the nature of dark energy, as well as the next generation of large ground-based giant optical telescopes and a new class of space-based gravitational observatory to observe the merging of distant black holes and precisely test theories of gravity. New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics recommends a balanced and executable program that will support research surrounding the most profound questions about the cosmos. The discoveries ahead will facilitate the search for habitable planets, shed light on dark energy and dark matter, and aid our understanding of the history of the universe and how the earliest stars and galaxies formed. The book is a useful resource for agencies supporting the field of astronomy and astrophysics, the Congressional committees with jurisdiction over those agencies, the scientific community, and the public.
Download or read book The Universe of Digital Sky Surveys written by Nicola R. Napolitano and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These are the proceedings of a meeting in honour of Massimo Capaccioli at the occasion of his 70th birthday. The conference aimed at summarizing the results from the main current and past digital sky survey projects and at discussing how these can be used to inspire ongoing projects and better plan the future ones. Over the last decades, digital sky surveys performed with dedicated telescopes and finely-tuned wide-field cameras, have revolutionized astronomy. They have become the main tool to investigate the nearby and far away universe, thus providing new insights in the understanding of the galaxy structure and assembly across time, the dark components of the universe, as well as the history of our own galaxy. They have also opened the time domain leading to a new understanding of the transient phenomena in the universe. By providing public access to top quality data, digital surveys have also changed the everyday practice of astronomers who have become less dependent on direct access to large observing facilities. The full scientific exploitation of these surveys has also triggered significant advances in both space and ground based technology and in the field of multi-object spectroscopy. The various sections of this book are devoted to different relevant aspects of astrophysics in the era of digital sky surveys and include both review and shorter, more focused contributions.
Download or read book The Origin and Evolution of Galaxies written by J.T. Jones and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Origin and Evolution of Galaxies is the outstanding problem of modern cosmology. Fortunately. we have a firm cosmological framework on which to base our theories (the hot big bang) and recently there has been substantial progress in providing observations which potentially can constrain these theories. The problem of galaxy formation is. as a consequence. one involving many diverse branches of physics and astrophysics. It has been the aim of the school. and this compendium of lectures and seminars. to bring together these diverse aspects at a level enabling research workers to understand what is going on in other corners of the subject and to see how progress in each area impinges on the others. We are grateful to the contributors to this volume for allowing us considerable editorial license with their articles. We have attempted to provide a representative sample of the talks that were given at the school besides the texts of the invited lecturers. It is regrettable that for reasons of space we have had to leave out a number of other contributions.
Download or read book Astrometry for Astrophysics written by William F. van Altena and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unifying work by a broad range of experts in the field, this is the most complete textbook on observational astrometry.
Download or read book An Improved Proper motion Catalog Combining USNO B and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey written by Jeffrey Alan Munn and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An improved proper-motion catalog is presented, combining the USNO-B and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) catalogs in the area of sky covered by SDSS Data Release 1 (DR1; 2099 deg2). USNO-B positions are recalibrated using SDSS galaxies, and proper motions are recomputed including both the USNO-B and SDSS positions. Statistical errors in the USNO-B proper motions are decreased by roughly 20%-30%, systematic errors are greatly reduced, and the proper motions are placed on an absolute reference frame. Requiring a match to an SDSS object removes the large number of false high proper motion objects in USNO-B. The resultant catalog is 90% complete to g
Download or read book A Grand and Bold Thing written by Ann K. Finkbeiner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-08-17 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LATE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, what had been a fevered pace of discovery in astronomy for many years had slowed. The Hubble Space Telescope continued to produce an astonishing array of images, but the study of the universe was still fractured into domains: measuring the universe’s expansion rate, the evolution of galaxies in the early universe, the life and death of stars, the search for extrasolar planets, the quest to understand the nature of the elusive dark matter. So little was understood, still, about so many of the most fundamental questions, foremost among them: What was the overall structure of the universe? Why had stars formed into galaxies, and galaxies into massive clusters? What was needed, thought visionary astronomer Jim Gunn, recently awarded the National Medal of Science, was a massive survey of the sky, a kind of new map of the universe that would be so rich in detail and cover such a wide swath of space, be so grand and bold, that it would allow astronomers to see the big picture in a whole new way. So was born the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a remarkable undertaking bringing together hundreds of astronomers and launching a new era of supercharged astronomical discovery, an era of “e-science” that has taken astronomy from the lonely mountaintop observatory to the touch of your fingertips. Critically acclaimed science writer Ann Finkbeiner tells the inside story of the Sloan and how it is revolutionizing astronomy. The Sloan stitched together images of deep space taken over the course of five years, providing a remarkably detailed, three-dimensional map of a vast territory of the universe, all digitized and downloadable for easy searching on a personal computer, and available not only to professional astronomers but to the public as well. Bringing together for the first time images of many millions of galaxies—including the massive structure known as the Sloan Great Wall of galaxies, never seen before—the Sloan is allowing astronomers and armchair enthusiasts alike to watch the universe grow up, providing so many discoveries at such a fast pace that, as one astronomer said, it’s like drinking out of a fire hose. They are watching galaxies forming and galaxies merging with other galaxies, seeing streams of stars swirling out from galaxies, and forming a new understanding of how the smooth soup of matter that emerged from the Big Bang evolved into the universe as we know it. Ann Finkbeiner brings the excitement and the extraordinary potential of this new era of astronomy vividly to life and allows all readers to understand how they, too, can become part of the discovery process. A Grand and Bold Thing is vital reading for all.
Download or read book Survey and Other Telescope Technologies and Discoveries written by J. Anthony Tyson and published by SPIE-International Society for Optical Engineering. This book was released on 2002 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Big Data in Astronomy written by Linghe Kong and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2020-06-13 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Big Data in Radio Astronomy: Scientific Data Processing for Advanced Radio Telescopes provides the latest research developments in big data methods and techniques for radio astronomy. Providing examples from such projects as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), the world's largest radio telescope that generates over an Exabyte of data every day, the book offers solutions for coping with the challenges and opportunities presented by the exponential growth of astronomical data. Presenting state-of-the-art results and research, this book is a timely reference for both practitioners and researchers working in radio astronomy, as well as students looking for a basic understanding of big data in astronomy. - Bridges the gap between radio astronomy and computer science - Includes coverage of the observation lifecycle as well as data collection, processing and analysis - Presents state-of-the-art research and techniques in big data related to radio astronomy - Utilizes real-world examples, such as Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST)
Download or read book Data Acquisition Systems for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will image [Pi] steradians about the north galactic cap in five filters, and acquire one million spectra using a dedicated 2.5 meter telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. The authors describe the data acquisition system for the survey's three main detectors: an imaging camera, mounting 54 Tektronix charge-coupled devices (CCD); a pair of spectrographs, each mounting a pair of CCDs; and a smaller monitor telescope camera. The authors describe the system's hardware and software architecture, and relate it to the survey's special requirements for high reliability and need to understand its instrumentation in order to produce a consistent survey over a five year period.
Download or read book Software Engineering Methods and Standards Used Int He Sloan Digital Sky Survey written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 6 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We present an integrated science software development environment, code maintenance and support system for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) now being actively used throughout the collaboration. The SDSS is a collaboration between the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Institute for Advanced Study, The Japan Promotion Group, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, The United States Naval Observatory, the University of Chicago, and the University of Washington. The SDSS will produce a five-color imaging survey of 1/4 of the sky about the north galactic cap and image 108 Stars, 108 galaxies, and 105 Quasars. Spectra will be obtained for 106 galaxies and 105 Quasars as well. The survey will utilize a dedicated 2.5 meter telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. Its imaging camera will hold 54 Charge-Coupled Devices (CADS). The SDSS will take five years to complete, acquiring well over 12 TB of data.
Download or read book Ensuring the Integrity Accessibility and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2009-12-17 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As digital technologies are expanding the power and reach of research, they are also raising complex issues. These include complications in ensuring the validity of research data; standards that do not keep pace with the high rate of innovation; restrictions on data sharing that reduce the ability of researchers to verify results and build on previous research; and huge increases in the amount of data being generated, creating severe challenges in preserving that data for long-term use. Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age examines the consequences of the changes affecting research data with respect to three issues - integrity, accessibility, and stewardship-and finds a need for a new approach to the design and the management of research projects. The report recommends that all researchers receive appropriate training in the management of research data, and calls on researchers to make all research data, methods, and other information underlying results publicly accessible in a timely manner. The book also sees the stewardship of research data as a critical long-term task for the research enterprise and its stakeholders. Individual researchers, research institutions, research sponsors, professional societies, and journals involved in scientific, engineering, and medical research will find this book an essential guide to the principles affecting research data in the digital age.
Download or read book Classification and Discovery in Large Astronomical Surveys written by Coryn Bailer-Jones and published by American Institute of Physics. This book was released on 2008-12-11 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Astronomical surveys produce large amounts of photometric, spectroscopic and time-series data. Object classification, parameter determination, novelty detection and the discovery of structure in these are challenging tasks. This book, featuring contributions from both astronomers and computer scientists, discusses a broad range of astronomical problems and shows how various machine learining and statistical analysis techniques are being used to solve them.
Download or read book Infrared Astronomy Seeing the Heat written by David L. Clements and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2014-11-21 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncover the Secrets of the Universe Hidden at Wavelengths beyond Our Optical Gaze William Herschel’s discovery of infrared light in 1800 led to the development of astronomy at wavelengths other than the optical. Infrared Astronomy – Seeing the Heat: from William Herschel to the Herschel Space Observatory explores the work in astronomy that relies on observations in the infrared. Author David L. Clements, a distinguished academic and science fiction writer, delves into how the universe works, from the planets in our own Solar System to the universe as a whole. The book first presents the major telescopes in the world of observational infrared astronomy, explains how infrared light is detected through various kinds of telescopes, and describes practical problems that send infrared astronomers to the tops of mountains and their telescopes into orbit and beyond. Much of the book focuses on what infrared astronomers find in their observations. You’ll discover what infrared astronomy reveals about the planets, moons, and other bodies that constitute our Solar System; star formation and stellar evolution; the processes that shape galaxies; and dark energy and dark matter. Infrared astronomy has revolutionized our understanding of the universe and has become essential in studying cosmology. Accessible to amateur astronomers, this book presents an overview of the science and technology associated with infrared astronomy. With color figures, it shows you how infrared astronomy provides insights into the workings of the universe that are unavailable at other wavelengths.
Download or read book Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems X written by Frank Roderic Harnden and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
