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Virtual Repository Working Group

The Virtual Astronomy Multimedia Project (VAMP) originally began in 2004 as the Virtual Repository (VR) Working Group under the auspices of Communicating Astronomy With the Public, IAU Division XII Commission 55. It has since grown and was renamed/repurposed as VAMP in Jan 2007 at the Seattle AAS meeting.

This page and original VR Vision paper serve the purpose of a historical reference to the project. For the current project website, please visit: http://virtualastronomy.org

The Virtual Repository vision paper (pdf)

Goal

 To construct the framework for a virtual repository to allow outreach resources across projects and country borders to be ‘catalogued’ in a virtual repository and accessed by educators, press, students and public through specialized visual tools combined with search engines.

Here repository is used in the meaning of a ‘place’ where the outreach and education resources are ‘collected’, and ‘virtual’ in the sense that no physical movement of data should take place – only a framework whereby the data can be accessed seamlessly in a sort of ‘VO-style’ is required.

Confirmed Members

This is a list of supporters of the VR project, last updated December 2006. Please visit our current website at http://virtualastronomy.org for current VAMP supporters, endorsers, prototypers, and work package contacts.

  1. Adrienne J. Gauthier, Co-chair, Instructional Technologist, gauthier@as.arizona.edu, Steward Observatory
  2. Robert Hurt, Co-Chair, Outreach imaging specialist, data provider specialist (SSC), hurt@ipac.caltech.edu
  3. Lars Lindberg Christensen, Secretary, lars@eso.org, Hubble/ESA/ESO, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, D-85748 Garching bei Munchen, Germany, Tel: 49 89 320 06 0; Fax: 49 89 320 06 480, resource metadata transport specialist, IAU liaison, data provider specialist (EURO-VO outreach coordinator)
  4. Richard Hook, WCS specialist (ST-ECF/ESA/ESO), rhook@eso.org
  5. Ian Robson, organisation, eir@roe.ac.uk
  6. Paolo Padovani, VO science specialist (AVO), Paolo.Padovani@eso.org
  7. Andreas Kratzer, Andreas_Kratzer@ph.tum.de
    Technische Universitaet Muenchen, James-Franck-Strasse, 85748 Garching, Germany Tel: 49 89 289 12596; Fax: 49 89 3206780. Educational providers and educational use specialist
  8. Robert Hill, rob@armaghplanet.com
    Armagh Planetarium College Hill, Armagh, County Armagh, BT61 9DB Northern Ireland Tel: 44 2837 524725; Fax: 44 2837 526187. Robotic/educational telescopes providers specialist (Armagh Planetarium, Faulkes Telescopes)
  9. Sergei Kudryavtsev, ksm@maris.ru
    Maris Technologies Ltd, Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Gostinichny proezd 6-2, 127106 Moscow, Russia Tel: 7 095 727 37 56; Fax: 7 095 727 37 54 . Visualisor specialist (Redshift developer lead)
  10. Dara Norman, dnorman@ctio.noao.edu
    Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory ; Casilla 603 ; La Serena, Chile
    Tel: 56 51 205 200 ; Fax: 56 51 205 212. VO specialist, international relations (NVO scientist)
  11. Peter Green, peter.green@alphagalileo.org, 338 City Road
    London EC1V 2PT, United Kingdom, Data provider specialist (Chief Executive, AlphaGalileo Foundation)
  12. Carlton Pennypacker, pennypacker@lbl.gov
    UC Berkeley; Building 50, Room 5036; 94720 Berkeley, CA ; USA
    Tel: 510 486 7429; Fax: 510 486 5401. GHOU specialist, educational use specialist (HOU coordinator).
  13. Megan Watzke/April Hobart/Kimberly Kowal, Chandra PIO, Data provider, mwatzke@head.cfa.harvard.edu
  14. Zolt Levay. Outreach imaging specialist (STScI), levay@stsci.edu
  15. Doug Isbell, data provider specialist (NOAO), disbell@noao.edu
  16. Ryan Wyatt, Visualiser and dataset specialist, Planetarium specialist (AMNH), wyatt@amnh.org, Rose Center for Earth & Space, American Museum of Natural History, 79th Street & Central Park West, New York, New York 10024 Tel: 1 212 313 7903 Fax: 1 212 313 7868
  17. Carter Emmart <carter@amnh.org>, AMNH
  18. Brian Abbott <abbott@amnh.org>, AMNH
  19. M. Jordan Raddick, Visualiser, Web Content Designer Johns Hopkins University/Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Phone: +1-(410) 516-8889, raddick@pha.jhu.edu
  20. Bob Hanisch, VO specialist (NVO lead), hanisch@stsci.edu
  21. Carol Christian, STScI, new technologies expert, NVO EPO Coordinator, carolc@stsci.edu
  22. Nahide Craig, SSL, Virtual Cosmos project, ncraig@ssl.berkeley.edu
  23. Bryan Mendez, SSL, Virtual Cosmos project, bmendez@ssl.berkeley.edu
  24. Lars Holm Nielsen, Hubble/ESA Advanced Projects Development head, lars@hankat.dk
  25. Kasper K. Nielsen, Hubble/ESA Advanced Projects Development GUIs, kaspar@barmave.dk
  26. Teis Johansen, Hubble/ESA Advanced Projects Development I/O, teis@siet.dk
  27. Frank Summers, STScI, summers@stsci.edu
  28. Valentina Luridiana, IAA, vale@iaa.es
  29. Uta Grothkopf, ESO Librarian, ESO, esolib@eso.org
  30. Lisa Frattare, STScI, frattare@stsci.edu

List of other potential members

  1. Linda Billings, repository specialist (Seti institute), lbillings@seti.org
  2. Starry Night representative, Visualiser specialist (Starry Night)
  3. Silicon Graphics representative, Visualiser specialist (SGI)
  4. Evans and Sutherland, Visualiser specialist, Kevin Scott?
  5. Google representative, Image search engine provider? (Google)
  6. Amateur astronomer?

Job description for implementation

To build a Virtual Repository framework as described at http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/repository/ i.e.:

a) Define how to store metadata with data files (also included in FITS Liberator v.2 specs).
b) Define the requirements that the existing archives should conform to in order to allow for a global exploitation of their content.
c) Define the protocol that communicates between third-party software and existing archives.
d) Define the role and requirements for the central coordinating organisation and the dynamic provider metadata list.
e) Build a simple astro-GOOGLE search engines that uses the Virtual Repository and returns search results with images from various archives.

Timeline

  • October/November 2004 Recruitment of remaining Programme Group members
  • October 2004 – May 2005 Discussions with possible Virtual Repository TaskForce re. implementation
  • November 2004 Discussions (loose) with Programme Group re. basic framework definitions (Metadata keywords, central coordination issues, archive implementation issues and this job description)
  • Jan 2005 Further discussions at AAS, San Diego
  • 14 June 2005 More detailed discussions with Programme Group at the CCAP conference Munich (http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/cap2005 ). Virtual Repository coordination team meets.

Many great things have happened with the VAMP project over the past year. Please visit our current website: http://virtualastronomy.org for current status, timelines, and deliverables.
IAU 2007