McGlynn Thomas

Abstract Reference: 31246
Identifier: P5.3
Presentation: Poster presentation
Key Theme: 5 Data Models in Astrophysics

The SkyView Survey Data Model

Authors:
McGlynn Thomas, McDonald Laura

The SkyView Virtual Telescope supports over one hundred survey data sets ranging from the radio through the gamma-ray regime. SkyView includes data spanning 18 orders of magnitude in frequency, 4 orders of magnitude in resolution, and many different coordinate systems and projections. To enable quick and easy access to these myriad NASA and non-NASA datasets SkyView has defined a simple data model for surveys. It takes advantage of existing data models: the world coordinate systems of FITS and the image models of the virtual observatory. Our model is easily implemented in XML and allows straightforward integration of new surveys into the system. The SkyView data model unites three distinct aspects of the survey: the quantitative description of the survey content, i.e., what pixels are available the science metadata for the survey, the provenance, bands, epoch and such and the special processing requirements or opportunities associated with the survey. This paper discusses the issues associated with defining the survey model including multiple levels of precision in defining the coverage of the datasets, the coupling of quantitative science information with approximate descriptive metadata, handling the differences between different wavelength regimes, and enabling special processing of datasets with particular quirks.