Architecture of the Avo Prototype
Abstract
Europe's Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (AVO) developed a prototype system and continues to improve it. A board of 50 scientists - the AVO science working group - is advising the project team with the goal of maximizing the scientific return.
In order to implement their recommendations a number of VO key technologies come into play. Each of the software components of the AVO prototye is developed and maintained by a different team in a different country. All modules work stand-alone but can be integrated as shown at the IVOA demo booth. The AVO prototype consists of a browser backed by image and catalogue servers a web service for the extraction of source catalogues and a utility for analyzing the spectral energy distribution of selected objects. The three components communicate in VOTable format - an XML dialect for Astronomy. Parameters (meta data) are mapped to Unified Content Descriptors (UCD). UCDs are about to become the standard way for expressing meta data in a VO. Finally the integrated meta data browser is based on the IDHA data model.- Publication:
-
IAU Joint Discussion
- Pub Date:
- 2003
- Bibcode:
- 2003IAUJD...8E..57D