DAL sessions in Victoria

[Silvia Dalla]

Hi Doug,

it's good to hear that the next version of SIAP will support 
queries by time. The question for the solar system (not just 
solar) community is whether or not POS and SIZE will be 
mandatory parameters. Essentially we need to have the capability 
of querying by time range *only* (I think that this kind of query 
may be useful also in some astronomy use cases ). Hence in the 
STAP proposal POS and SIZE are optional parameters.

(Note that STAP assumes some friendliness of Votable to
ISO-6801 time strings - see the recent post by Mark Taylor 
in the votable forum, and following discussion).

I think that enabling some degree of interoperability between 
Astronomy and Solar System VOs is important. The science 
boundaries between these areas are becoming less and less sharp
(Helio- and astero-seismology, solar and stellar flares, exoplanets, 
HST imaging the aurora on Jupiter and Saturn etc...).
As you say, there are big differences in metadata and coordinate
systems so this will necessarily be limited.

AstroGrid are currently providing VSO data via the HelioScope
service, which is based on STAP. I believe that Frank and VSO
have expressed an interest in IVOA activities, specifically 
VoEvent.

It will be good to discuss these issues further in Victoria,
with best wishes,
Silvia


On Tue, 25 Apr 2006, Doug Tody wrote:

> Hi Silvia -
>
> Thanks, that helps a bit to clarify things.
>
> Note that the next version of SIAP will support queries by time and
> spectral bandpass as well as position (among other things). The main
> reason for having a separate protocol for solar data would be if the 
> metadata required to describe solar data is significantly different. Here
> in the US for example, the VSO (Virtual Solar Observatory) has their own
> protocols which are tuned to their data. At the most basic level these are
> similar to what we have in IVOA, but there are substantial differences,
> e.g., position refers to the solar surface or the corona, the observed 
> attributes may include things like acoustic power or number of sunspots, 
> and so forth. The metadata returned to describe an image or other
> observation would probably be substantially different. See for example
> http://vso.nso.edu/.
>
> It is an interesting question for the IVOA whether its scope should
> include solar and planetary data. Currently we don't really address this,
> and these disciplines tend to already have their own "VO" (at least here 
> in the US). However, there is some contact and there are occasional 
> discussions about increasing interoperability or possibly sharing 
> technology.
>
>    * Doug 
>
> On Tue, 25 Apr 2006, Silvia Dalla wrote:
> 
> > You can find a first draft of the STAP protocol here:
> > http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/s.dalla/astrogrid/strap.html
> >
> > best wishes,
> > Silvia

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Silvia Dalla
School of Physics and Astronomy
University of Manchester
PO Box 88
Manchester M60 1QD
UK

Tel +44-161-306 8705
Fax +44-161-306 3941
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