Gaia CU9: facilitating UK exploitation of Gaia data - Bristol element
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bristol
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Publications
Cecconi B
(2023)
Time-frequency catalogue: JSON implementation and python library
in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences
| Title | TOPCAT |
| Description | TOPCAT is a general purpose catalogue analysis manipulation tool used throughout astronomy. This funding is to tailor TOPCAT to the specific requirements generated by the form of the GAIA data set and the analysis of that data set. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2010 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Used broadly in astronomy to generate multiple (thousands of ) research outputs, used for the manipulation and analysis of astronomical catalogue data. Continually improved and updated with new capability in response to user and community requests. |
| URL | https://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/topcat/ |
| Title | TOPCAT(GAIA specific enhancements) |
| Description | While TOPCAT is a tool in general use in astronomy, this award specifically allows improvements to the software for manipulation and analysis of GAIA data by the GAIA consortium |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Multiple GAIA papers from the GAIA consortium (and others) using the GAIA published catalogue, interrogated and analysed through TOPCAT and in particular the GAIA-specific improvements to the software |
| 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/ |
| Description | Gaia CU9 |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Department | Institute of Astronomy |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Bristol contribution - TOPCAT and VO tailoring to GAIA requirements - to the STFC (PPRP) grant held by Nic Walton in Cambridge |
| Collaborator Contribution | Continued support and development of the Gaia dataset and database |
| Impact | TOPCAT software tailored for Gaia data analysis and related VO development for provision of the Gaia data |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| 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/ |