Virtual Observatory Software for Astronomers

AstroGrid Science Call June 2008

Science Tools/ Workflows/ Research Communities

Call for Proposals: Deadline : 17.00 BST Friday 27th June 2008

The AstroGrid project is seeking proposals for new or adapted science tools or workflows, or shared-data collaborative spaces, that enable specific scientific projects to be carried out with the AstroGrid system. The successful teams will work with a small team of AstroGrid staff to complete their projects and/or build new software tools. These projects will be completed by end December 2008.

INTRODUCTION

AstroGrid has deployed the UK's Virtual Observatory service. The Apr 2008 v1.0 release (see http://www.astrogrid.org) offers a number of powerful capabilities, helping the astronomer find, get and work with a wide range of astrophysical data. AstroGrid offers significant potential to support the data analysis and discovery needs of a wide range of astronomers, from Cosmologists to Solar and Solar/Terrestrial Physicists.

This third AstroGrid 'science-call' seeks ideas from the community to support specific science projects. The successful proposal teams will gain access to expert AstroGrid developer and scientist effort - and over a period of six months will be able to configure the AstroGrid s/w components to suit their science use case.

A possible new focus in the 2008 call could be shared collaborative spaces for research teams with private data which they aim to publicly release. The idea here would be to publish datasets so that they are accessible by VO tools, and to create a "community" so that members of a collaboration can have access to data in a shared area of VOspace, and easily add to it, in advance of full publication to the wider community.

Those with proposals from the STP community are encouraged to apply as this area has not yet been supported in the previous 2006 and 2007 calls.

PROPOSAL PROCEDURE

Proposals are limited to two pages and should outline the science goals, the approach to be taken and how it draws upon VO resources and capabilities offered through the AstroGrid VO system and the nature of any tools, datasets, or science applications to be developed.

The proposal should indicate what AstroGrid support is required in terms of technical or scientific support. The proposers might suggest developing a new tool, making some particular application available via the VO, or ensuring access to some particular range of data sets.

Successful applications will be those presenting a clear science case, with additional weight given to those where the tool or capability created through the VO is more generally useful to the community. See the supported programmes from the 2006 & 2007 call (linked from http://www.astrogrid.org/wiki/Community/ScienceCalls) for examples.

AstroGrid will provide the required technical developer support to the proposal team in creating the VO capability that they propose. The team would be invited to meet with the AstroGrid project team (at AstroGrid's expense) at the start of the six month development period, to define the task. AstroGrid would then work with the team to produce the tool or capability, with contact via email or telecons through the development phase.

AstroGrid will make available a small team of developers and scientists to support two to three successful programmes over the period July - December 2008.

Each successful project team will be expected to provide a brief final report or reference to a peer-reviewed research publication based on the research. Any software developed as a result of this effort should be shared with the astronomy community through the AstroGrid project.

Applications should be submitted by email to science <at> astrogrid.org no later than 17.00 BST Friday 27 June 2008. Additional information and answers to questions may be obtained by sending an e-mail to helpdesk <at> astrogrid.org or see the AstroGrid website (http://www.astrogrid.org)

The proposals will be reviewed by the AstroGrid Advisory Group (which is composed of representatives from the UK astronomy community). The AstroGrid Project Management team will advise the review panel on the technical feasibility of the proposed projects. It is anticipated that the results of the selection procedure will be known by mid July 2008.

Background Links:

Examples of work supported through the first call in Apr 2006 included making access available to a large optical catalogue and image set (see http://www2.astrogrid.org/science/science-examples-stars/iphas-catalogue-images/ and the survey at http://www.iphas.org), bringing solar IDL algorithms to the VO (see http://www2.astrogrid.org/science/misctutorials/chianti-on-astrogrid/) and making access possible to XCS cluster datasets.

The second 2007 call programme supported development of a sophisticated workflow to allow for the automation of the classification of transient event objects, the publication of the new Hipparcos reduction, and a SED workflow comparing observed and model SEDs for high redshift galaxies. Details of these are available at http://www.astrogrid.org/wiki/Community/ScienceCalls/ScienceCallMay2007

Acknowledging AstroGrid. If you make use of the AstroGrid system or tools, we would be grateful if you could acknowledge this use in any resulting publications. You could use these words: 'This research has made use of data obtained using, or software provided by, the UK's AstroGrid Virtual Observatory Project, which is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council and through the EU's Framework 6 programme.' Use of any data discovered or accessed through AstroGrid should of course be mentioned as noted by the data providers.

Licensing and Copyright. AstroGrid software is released under the Academic Free License.. The copyright on the text used in these web pages is owned by the contributing authors. Copyright on images used are assumed to be with the indicated or implied source as appropriate.