Virtual Observatory Acronyms & Links

Astronomical on-line data archives

2MASS Two-micron All-Sky Survey - Infra-red (Caltech)
AAT Anglo-Australian Telescope - archive
ADC Astronomical Data Center (GSFC)
AEQ ADC External Query engine (GSFC)
Aladin Image archive and browser (Strasbourg)
AMASE Astrophysics Multi-spectral Archive Search Engine (GSFC)
APM cat Astronomical Plate Measuring engine catalogue site (Cambridge)
APS Automated Plate Scanner (University of Minnesota)
ASCA ASCA science archive (ISAS, Japan)
ASDC Italian Space Agency (ASI) Science Data Centre
Astrobrowse Astrobrowse query engine (GSFC)
CADC Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (Victoria, BC)
CASU Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit
CDS Centre de Donées de Strasbourg
CEUV Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics (Berkeley)
Chandra Chandra X-ray Observatory Center (Harvard)
Chandra-UK Chandra data archives - UK mirror (Leicester)
DAO Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (Victoria BC)
DIANA Distributed Italian Astronomy Network Achive
DPOSS Palomar Digital Sky Survey (Caltech)
EGSO European Grid of Solar Observatories
ESO-archive European Southern Observatory archive (Garching)
FIRST Faint Images of Radio Sky at Twenty-centimeters (VLA)
GSC-II Guide Star Catalog-II (STScI)
HEASARC High Energy Astronomy Science Archive Research Center (GSFC)
HERA HEASARC data analysis tool (GSFC)
IMPRESS IMage PeRimeters of Sky Surveys - graphical database interface (GSFC)
INES IAU Final Archive data (Strasbourg)
INT Isaac Newton Telescope - wide field survey
IoA Institute of Astronomy (Cambridge)
IoA-archive Institute of Astronomy (Cambridge) archive
IPAC Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (Caltech)
IRSA InfraRed Science Archive (Caltech)
ISO Infrared Space Observatory (Vilspa)
IUE International Ultraviolet Explorer archive (Vilspa)
jMAISON Multi-wavelength Astronomical Image Service ON-line
LEDA Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database
LEDAS Leicester Data Archive Service
MAST Multimission Archive at STScI
NED NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (Caltech)
NSSDC National Space Science Data Center (GSFC)
NVSS NRAO VLA Sky Survey
PDS Planetary Data System (JPL)
protoPXC Prototype positional cross-correlator (CDS)
Querator Advanced multi-archive search engine
ROSAT Rontgensatelit X-ray Data Centre (Garching)
SAO Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (Harvard)
SDAC Solar Data Analysis Center (GSFC)
SDSS Sloan Digital Sky Survey
SIRTF Space Infrared Telescope Facility
SSDS Space Science Data System (GSFC)
SSS SuperCOSMOS Sky Surveys
Starcast Starcast interface to STScI archive
Starview6 Starview database browser - (StSCI)
STScI Space Telescope Science Centre - archive (Baltimore)
SuperCOSMOS Wide Field Astronomy Unit (Edinburgh) sky survey
SX Sloan Digital Sky Survey Science Archive (Johns Hopkins University)
UKADC UK Astronomical Data Centre (Cambridge)
VizieR Catalogue archive with browser (Strasbourg)
WFAU Wide Field Astronomy Unit (Edinburgh)

Astronomical Observatories and Future Projects

ATC Astronomy Technology Centre (Edinburgh)
ClassX Classifying the High-energy Universe
eSTAR eScience Telescopes for Astronomical Research
GAVO Astrophysical Virtual Observatory http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/~whv/
Gemini Gemini observatory (UK mirror site)
IfA Institute for Astronomy (Edinburgh)
MACHO Massive Compact Halo Objects - survey (ANU)
MERLIN Multi-Element Radio-Linked Interferometer Network (Jodrell Bank)
MSSL Mullard Space Science Laboratory (UCL)
NRAL Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratory (Jodrell Bank)
PPARC UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Reseach Council
RAL Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
ROE Royal Observatory Edinburgh
STECF Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (Garching)
USNO US Naval Observatory
VISTA Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy
WFCAM Wide Field Infrared Camera for UKIRT
XMM-Newton XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre (Vilspa)
XMM-SSC XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (Leicester)

Bibliographical sites and Documentation

Astro-ph Astrophysics preprint service (Southampton)
ASDS Astronomical Software & Documentation Service
Bibcode Bibliographic reference code
Simbad Bibliographic database (Strasbourg)

Conference Proceedings

ADASS Astronomical Data Analysis Software & Systems conferences
AstroGrid Workshop Belfast, 2001 January
Mining the Sky Mining the Sky, Garching, 2001 July/August.
VOF Virtual Observatories of the Future conference (Caltech)

Grids and databases

CNAP PPARC Computing and Networking Advisory Panel
Condor High throughput computing environment (Wisconsin)
CORBA Common Object Request Broker Architecture
EGRID European Grid Forum
EU datagrid European Union Data Grid
GASS Global Access to Secondary Storage (part of Globus)
GÉANT pan-European Gigabit Research and Education Network
Globus Globus Project
Grid forum Global Grid Forum
GridPP Particle Physics Grid
Gryphyn US Grid Physics Network
GSC UK Grid Support Centre
IPG Information Power Grid (NASA)
MOCHA Middleware Based On a Code sHipping Architecture (Univ. of Maryland)
MCAT Metadata Catalogue (part of SRB)
NESC UK National e-Science Centre
PBS Portable Batch System
SpaceGRID ESA Space Grid
SRB Storage Request Broker (SDSC)
UDDI Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration
VML Vector Markup Language
WSDL Web Services Definition Language
XML eXtensible Markup Language - for astronomy

Technology and standards

AstroGLU Database discovery tool (Strasbourg)
Astrores Proposed XML terminology for astronomy (Strasbourg)
ASU Astronomical Server URL (Strasbourg)
CatStd Standard for documentation of astronomical catalogues (Strasbourg)
CDS tools CDS tools collection
DSTP DataSpace Transfer Protocol
FITS Flexible Image Transport System
GIOD Globally Interconnected Object Databases (Caltech)
GLU Générateur de Liens Uniformes (Strasbourg)
HEALPix Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelisation (ESO)
HFWG HEASARC FITS Working Group
HTM Hierarchical Triangular Mesh (JHU)
ISAIA Inter-operable Systems for Archival Information Access (GSFC)
Level5 Knowledgebase for Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology
NGAST Next Generation Archive Systems Technologies (ESO)
OGIP FITS header conventions from GSFC/HEASARC
PICA The Pittsburgh Computational Astrostatistics (PiCA) Group
UCD Unified Column Descriptor - CDS standard
XDF eXtensible Data Format - proposed standard from GSFC

Virtual Observatory Projects and Forums

Astro-wise Astronomical Wide-field Imaging System for Europe
Astrovirtel EU data archive access project
Astrogrid Astrogrid - UK's Virtual Observatory project
AVO Astrophysical Virtual Observatory
China-VO Virtual Observatory of China
COST Cooperations in Scientific and Technical Research (Action 283: Astronomical Datagrid)
Digital Sky Digital Sky Project (Caltech)
iAstro iAstro - Computational and Information Infrastructure in the Astronomical DataGrid
NVO National Virtual Observatory (USA)
OASIS On-line Archive Science Information Services (Caltech)
Opticon Optical Infrared Coordination Network
OST UK Office of Science and Techology
RVO Russian Virtual Observatory
SEA Scientists Expert Assistant (GSFC)
Skycat Skycat data visualiser (Garching)
SkyServer Sloan Digitial Sky Survey server (JHU)
Skyview Virtual Observatory image viewer (GSFC)
Urania Universal Research Archive of Networked Information in Astronomy

Updated by cgp 2002-11-12