The Virtual Observatory (VO) is becoming the de-facto standard for astronomical data publication. However, the number of radio astronomical archives is still low in general, and even lower is the number of radio astronomical data available through th
e VO. In order to facilitate the building of new radio astronomical archives, easing at the same time their interoperability with VO framework, we have developed a VO-compliant data model which provides interoperable data semantics for radio data. That model, which we call the Radio Astronomical DAta Model for Single-dish (RADAMS) has been built using standards of (and recommendations from) the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA). This article describes the RADAMS and its components, including archived entities and their relationships to VO metadata. We show that by using IVOA principles and concepts, the effort needed for both the development of the archives and their VO compatibility has been lowered, and the joint development of two radio astronomical archives have been possible. We plan to adapt RADAMS to be able to deal with interferometry data in the future.
In the Virtual Observatory era, where we intend to expose scientists (or software agents on their behalf) to a stream of observations from all existing facilities, the ability to access and to further interpret the origin, relationships, and processi
ng steps on archived astronomical assets (their Provenance) is a requirement for proper observation selection, and quality assessment. In this article we present the different use cases Data Provenance is needed for, the challenges inherent to building such a system for the ESO archive, and their link with ongoing work in the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA).
The large survey programs being performed nowadays, being the SDSS their flagship, provide us with morphological parameters which allow for extraction of large galaxy samples. We will analyze the methodology for obtaining an AMIGA-like catalogue of i
solated galaxies from the SDSS DR5 photometric catalogue of galaxy objects, together with the roadblocks found in the process, and suggested workarounds.
Data Models are an essential part of automatic data processing, but even more so when trying to tie together data coming from many different data sources, as is the case for the International Virtual Observatory. In this talk we will review the diffe
rent data models used in the IVOA, which parts of that Data Modelling work are still incomplete, specially in radio wavelengths, and the work the AMIGA group has done within the IVOA Data Modelling Working Group to overcome those shortcomings both in missing data models and support for Radio Astronomy.
All the effort that the astrophysical community has put into the development of the Virtual Observatory (VO) has surpassed the non-return point: the VO is a reality today, and an initiative that will self-sustain, and to which all archival projects m
ust adhere. We have started the design of the scientific archive for the DSS-63 70-m antenna at NASAs DSN station in Robledo de Chavela (Madrid). Here we show how we can use all VO proposed data models to build a VO-compliant single-dish, multiple-feed, radio astronomical archive data model (RADAMS) suitable for the archival needs of the antenna. We also propose an exhaustive list of Universal Content Descriptors (UCDs) and FITS keywords for all relevant metadata. We will further refine this data model with the experience that we will gain from that implementation.
