VO Activities
SAO/NASA Astrophysics data System (ADS) Mirror
The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. The ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 12.5 million records: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and arXiv e-prints.
The main body of data in the ADS consists of bibliographic records, which are searchable through highly customizable query forms, and full-text scans of much of the astronomical literature which can be browsed or searched via our full-text search interface. Integrated in its databases, the ADS provides access and pointers to a wealth of external resources, including electronic articles, data catalogs and archives. We currently have links to over 12.0 million records maintained by our collaborators.
Inter-University Institute for Data-Intensive Astronoy (IDIA) with support from African Research Cloud (ARC) host a local mirror of the ADS data at this url: http://ads.idia.ac.za/.
Data Archive System for SALT (SALT-VODAS)
With the aim to provide VO enabled access to the SALT data, a project is undertaken to develop SALT VO DATA Archive (SALT-VODAS) with VO-India collaboration. SALT-VODAS consists of highly sophisticated programmes which will be executed through simple user interfaces and now being in testing phase. Using SALT-VODAS, astronomers and students across South Africa as well as the world will able to retrieve and download the SALT data which is available for public use without any cost. This adds value to science projects that are being planned by scientists with SALT. It will also help share SA3 VO expertise with future big projects such as KAT-7/MeerKAT/SKA.
Commissioning and non-proprietary data can be searched and downloaded using the SALT-VODAS website interface.
SALT Android Visibility Calculator App
SALT target visibility tool is an android application for mobile/tablet devices developed by VO-India. It has the capability to resolve the celestial object co-ordinate using well known web services called NED/SIMBAD with usual facilities of stand-alone SALT target visibility tool. Please watch this space for more information.