announce: ASPID-SR -- VO-Enabled Data Archive

[Igor Chilingarian]

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce Beta release of the ASPID-SR VO-Enabled data
archive. ASPID-SR stands for "Archive of Spectral, Photometric, and
Interferometric Data". SR means "science ready". It contains data coming
from selected instruments of the Russian 6-m telescope (BTA, SAO RAS)
built in the Laboratory of Spectroscopy and Photometry of Extragalactic
Objects (LSPEO SAO RAS). Present release is made mainly to demonstrate
how Virtual Observatory data models (Characterisation DM, Spectral DM) and
protocols (PLASTIC) can be used to achieve interoperability between the
archive, providing complex datasets, and client software (CDS Aladin, ESA
VOSpec, VO-Paris EuroVO Client).

ASPID-SR search interface is available here:
http://alcor.sao.ru/php/aspid-sr/

To enjoy the complete functionality of the archive, you may need to run 
additional VO applications. Click on the link "Start VO Tools" on the top of 
the search page for details.

At present, ASPID-SR provides access to about 500 datasets: 3D spectral data
coming from the MPFS IFU spectrograph and low- and intermediate-resolution
long-slit spectra obtained with the SCORPIO universal spectrograph.

This project is a collaborative effort.
Our team comprises (alphabetical order):
* Victor Afanasiev (LSPEO SAO RAS, Russia) - data provider
* Francois Bonnarel (CDS, France) - validation of metadata and access interfaces
* Igor Chilingarian (Obs.de Paris-Meudon, France / SAI MSU, Russia) - DB design, metadata computation, data conversion, VO access methods, tools interconnection, system management, user support
* Serguei Dodonov (LSPEO SAO RAS, Russia) - data provider
* Mireille Louys (CDS, France) - validation of metadata and access interfaces
* Alexey Moiseev (LSPEO SAO RAS, Russia) - data provider
* Ivan Zolotukhin (SAI MSU, Russia) - WEB-2.0 interface design and implementation, DB development

We are grateful to prompt reaction and efficient user support provided by
the ESA VOSpec team in Madrid and CDS Aladin team in Strasbourg, and to
Nikolay Samokhvalov (Moscow) for solving our PgXML problems.

Your feedback is very welcome. The web-interface is not well tested under 
anything else than Mozilla-Firefox.

Our plans for the nearest future (before Beijing interop): improving 
documentation :), SSAP access for integrated and extracted spectra, release of 
several dozens of Fabry-Perot H-alpha datacubes for nearby galaxies, improving 
Aladin scripting for preview images.

Technical details: 
-------------------
Every dataset is provided in three different formats: (1) original FITS format
produced by the data reduction software, (2) on-the-fly generated Euro3D FITS
format, and (3) on-the-fly generated regularly sampled data cube. For
long-slit spectra data cubes have 1 point in the "X" dimension.

ASPID-SR completely implements IVOA Characterisation Data Model. For every
dataset we provide full Characterisation metadata. These metadata are stored
as native XML in the database and queried directly from the WEB-interface:
user input is translated into XML XPath and then used to constraint SQL
query. The backend is based on the XMLType support for PostgreSQL
implemented by Nikolay Samokhvalov, MIPT (Google Summer of Code 2006).

In order to use interactive features of our archive, you will need
Java(1.5+)- and JavaScript-enabled web browser, and (strongly recommended)
Java Web-Start. Interaction is done by an invisible Java applet (aspidapplet)
which is attached to every page containing query results. "aspidapplet"
interacts via PLASTIC messages with VO-Paris Euro3D Client and CDS Aladin.

CDS Aladin is used to display location of spectrograph's slit or IFU
micro-lenses overimposed on the DSS2 image. PLASTIC hub, implemented in
Aladin is used by other applications and web-pages of the archive to
intercommunicate.

Handling Euro3D FITS format is done by using a dedicated software, VO-Paris 
Euro3D Client, an open source Java software, developed by Igor Chilingarian, 
implementing PLASTIC messaging for interacting with CDS Aladin 
(bi-directional) and ESA VOSpec (output only). Euro3D Client reads Euro3D 
files and allows to display (or save to disk) positions of spatial elements 
(Spaxels) in Aladin, or extracted spectra (individual or co-added spectra) in 
VOSpec. Extracted spectra fully conform to the VOTable serialisation of the 
IVOA Spectral Data Model 1.0rc2.

ESA VOSpec is used to display spectra and may be used to perform 
further analysis, e.g. spectral line identifications, profile fitting etc.

Fact sheet:
-----------
Project title: ASPID-SR
Type: archive of science-ready data
VO standards implemented: Characterisation DM, Spectral DM, PLASTIC
Output data formats: Euro3D FITS, 3D-cube FITS, VOTable
Data types: optical 3D spectroscopy, optical long-slit spectroscopy
Database engine: PostgreSQL 8.2.1 with native XML support
WEB-interface: WEB-2.0, PHP-5 (CakePHP), CGI (Perl), Java
Server software: Linux Slackware, Apache 1.3.37
Server hardware: Dual Intel Xeon-2.8GHz, 4Gb RAM, 1Tb Software-RAID5 storage
-----------------------------------

With best regards,
 						Igor