Righini Simona

Abstract Reference: 30808
Identifier: P5.4
Presentation: Poster presentation
Key Theme: 5 Data Models in Astrophysics

Medicina, Noto and VLBI-IT Radio Archive: modelling radio data formats (lightning talk)

Authors:
Righini Simona, Knapic Cristina, Zanichelli Alessandra, Dovgan Erik, Nanni Mauro, Stagni Matteo, Massimo Sponza, Orlati Andrea, Smareglia Riccardo

Radio astronomical data models are becoming very complex since the huge possible range of instrumental configurations available with the modern radio telescopes. What in the past was the last frontiers of data formats in terms of efficiency and flexibility, is now evolving with new strategies and methodologies enabling the persistence of very complex, hierarchical, and multi-purpose information. Modern Single Dish acquisition modes are described by a vast number of possible instrumental setup parameters. This required the design and implementation of a Radio Data Model able to store all the information needed to fully characterize the various observations. The developed radio data model has been built on top of the data/metadata structure defined in the MBFITS standard for the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) and is capable to handle radio data written in FITS format as well.For VLBI-IT acquisition mode, a customized XML summary file stores the main configuration parameters for the interferometric observations and is a subset of the previously mentioned Radio data model. This aims at enhancing the archiving system performance,maintenance and behavior, providing the (inter)national community with a state-of-the-art archive for radio astronomical data and will in the near future be provided also with Virtual Observatory compliant services to increase the interoperability of data. The archiving system itself is equipped with an internal data model in order to handle transparently all the various radio raw data formats mentioned above. A Web User Interface allows for easy and user friendly access to data. Querying functions and column indexes have been implemented into the database to optimize the investigation over the hierarchical database structure, returning information organized in a table on the output web page.