TOPCAT and the Virtual Observatory
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bristol
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
This project comprises two linked activities that will support astronomers at all levels in making best scientific use of the large and complex datasets delivered by state of the art ground- and space-based telescopes.
The first is support, maintenance and development of the very widely-used TOPCAT software package for analysis of tabular data. This powerful application is relied upon by many astronomers worldwide, providing world-leading capabilities for interactive exploration of source catalogues.
The second is involvement with the Virtual Observatory (VO), a worldwide framework of data exchange standards and services that allows seamless access to remote astronomical data from the desktop and thereby underpins much of the way astronomers now interact with large widely-distributed databases and archives. This VO involvement takes the form of co-authoring, reviewing and implementing the technical standards that define the way data is annotated and delivered, as well as contributing software that helps data archives to deploy services that reliably conform to those standards.
The first is support, maintenance and development of the very widely-used TOPCAT software package for analysis of tabular data. This powerful application is relied upon by many astronomers worldwide, providing world-leading capabilities for interactive exploration of source catalogues.
The second is involvement with the Virtual Observatory (VO), a worldwide framework of data exchange standards and services that allows seamless access to remote astronomical data from the desktop and thereby underpins much of the way astronomers now interact with large widely-distributed databases and archives. This VO involvement takes the form of co-authoring, reviewing and implementing the technical standards that define the way data is annotated and delivered, as well as contributing software that helps data archives to deploy services that reliably conform to those standards.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Malcolm Bremer (Principal Investigator) | |
| Mark Taylor (Researcher) |
| Title | LSST interoperability |
| Description | Work with Vera Rubin Observatory to provide topcat authenticated access to protected LSST data: https://rsp.lsst.io/v/usdfdev/guides/auth/using-topcat-outside-rsp.html |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Enables access to protected LSST data by authenticated users from TOPCAT. https://rsp.lsst.io/v/usdfdev/guides/auth/using-topcat-outside-rsp.html |
| URL | https://rsp.lsst.io/v/usdfdev/guides/auth/using-topcat-outside-rsp.html |
| Title | TOPCAT/STILTS integration: |
| Description | Enhancements to make it easier for topcat users to transition to command-line stilts usage for crossmatching, VO interaction etc. Presented a poster at ADASS on this: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.03299 |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Enhancements to make it easier for topcat users to transition to command-line stilts usage for crossmatching, VO interaction etc. Presented a poster at ADASS on this: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.03299 |
| Title | Topcat code base modernisation: |
| Description | Overhaul parts of the source code/build system, now builds cleanly on modern Java installations. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Ensures stability of TOPCAT builds into the near future (next few years at least), ensuring user community can benefit from future versions even as underlying Java system evolves |
| URL | https://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/topcat/ |
| Title | VOParquet |
| Description | authored a technical document on use of the Parquet file format in the Virtual Observatory : https://www.ivoa.net/documents/Notes/VOParquet/ Several large projects (Gaia, Rubin, SPHEREx, WAVES, others) want to use this. Also did associated implementation (validation suite, I/O in topcat) |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Documentation and validation efforts will enable file format to be used by Gaia, VRO/LSST, SPHEREx, WAVES and others |
| URL | https://www.ivoa.net/documents/Notes/VOParquet/ |
| Title | Topcat and related software |
| Description | TOPCAT and related libraries provide means of accessing, displaying, and comparing catalogue data from remote or local databases. The software is the predominant astronomical catalogue manipulation package. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Used for Gaia and many other projects. New versions are frequently released. The most recent public release of TOPCAT is version 4.10-2 released 8 November 2024, but continual maintenance updates are regularly released |
| URL | http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/topcat/ |