Mercator Observatory Data Archive TAP serviceMercator TAPivo://mercator/tapMercator Observatory, KU LeuvenMercator Archive Teamhttps://mercatorvo.ster.kuleuven.be/static/favicon.png2025-11-06T10:57:56ZMercator Archive support teamRoque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palmaarchive@mercator.iac.esvirtual-observatoriescatalogsThe Mercator Observatory Data Archive's TAP end point. The Table Access
Protocol (TAP) lets you execute queries against our database tables,
inspect various metadata, and upload your own data. It is thus the
VO's premier way to access public data holdings.
Tables exposed through this endpoint include: data from the hermes schema, columns, groups, key_columns, keys, schemas, tables from the tap_schema schema.https://mercatorvo.ster.kuleuven.be/__system__/tap/run/infohttps://mercatorvo.ster.kuleuven.be/tapObscore-1.1ADQL2.02.1The Astronomical Data Query Language is the standard IVOA dialect of SQL; it contains a very general SELECT statement as well as some extensions for spherical geometry and higher mathematics.Returns a POINT (in the UNDEFINED reference frame) for the position
an object at ra/dec with proper motion pmra/pmde has after epdist years.
positions must be in degrees, PMs in should be in julian years (i.e., proper
motions are expected in degrees/year). pmra is assumed to contain
cos(delta).
This function goes through the tangential plane. Since it does not have
information on distance and radial velocity, it cannot reconstruct
the true space motion, and hence its results will degrade over time.
This function should not be used in new queries; use ivo_epoch_prop
instead.returns the authority part of an ivoid (or, more generally a URI).
So, ivo://org.gavo.dc/foo/bar#baz becomes org.gavo.dc.
The behaviour for anything that's not a full URI is undefined.gavo_ipix returns the q3c ipix for a long/lat pair (it simply wraps
the 13c_ang2ipix function).
This is probably only relevant when you play tricks with indices or
PPMXL ids.gavo_match returns 1 if the POSIX regular expression pattern
matches anything in string, 0 otherwise.returns the intersection of two MOCs.returns the union of two MOCs.returns the spectral value expr converted to dest_unit.
expr has to be in either energy, wavelength, or frequency, and dest_unit
must be a VOUnit giving another spectral unit (e.g., MHz, keV, nm, or
Angstrom). This is intended to let users express spectral constraints
in their preferred unit independently of the choice of unit in the
database. Examples::
gavo_specconv(obscore.em_min, "keV") > 300
gavo_specconv(obscore.em_max, "MHz") > 30
gavo_specconv(spectral_start, "Angstrom") > 4000
There is a variant of gavo_specconv accepting expr's unit in a third
argument.returns expr assumed to be in expr_unit expressed in dest_unit.
This is a variant of the two-argument gavo_specconv for when
the unit of expr is not known to the ADQL translator, either because
it because it is a literal or because it does not look like
a spectral unit. Examples::
gavo_specconv(656, 'nm', 'J') BETWEEN spectral_start AND spectral_end
gavo_specconv(arccos(phi)*incidence, 'Hz', 'eV')
Clearly, overriding known units is likely to yield bad results;
the translator therefore warns if an existing unit is overridden
with a different unit.returns 1 if matchagainst is term or narrower in the IVOA vocabulary
vocname, 0 otherwise.
This is intended for semantic querying. For instance,
gavo_vocmatch('datalink/core', 'calibration', semantics) would be 1
if semantics is any of calibration, bias, dark, or flat.
For RDF-flavoured vocabularies (strict trees), term will expand to the
entire branch rooted in term. For SKOS-flavoured vocabularies (where
narrower is not transitive), only directly narrower terms will be included.
Both the term and the vocabulary name must be string literals (i.e.,
constants). matchagainst can be any string-valued expression.Returns a 6-vector of (ra, dec, parallax, pmra, pmdec, rv)
at out_epoch for these quantities at ref_epoch.
Essentially, it will apply the proper motion under the assumption of
linear motion. Despite the name of the positional parameters, this is
not restricted to equatorial systems, as long as positions and proper
motions are expressed in the same reference frames.
Units on input and output are degrees for ra and dec, mas for parallax,
mas/yr for pmra and pmdec, and km/s for the radial velocity.
ref_epoch and out_epoch are given in Julian years.
parallax, pmra, pmdec, and radial_velocity may be None and will enter
the computations as 0 then, except in the case of parallax, which
will be some small value. When abs(parallax) is smaller or equal
to that small value, parallax and radial velocity will be NULL on
output.
In daily use, you probably want to use the ivo_epoch_prop_pos functions.Returns a POINT giving the position at out_epoch for an object
with the six parameters at ref_epoch.
Essentially, it will apply the proper motion under the assumption of
linear motion. Despite the name of the positional parameters, this is
not restricted to equatorial systems, as long as positions and proper
motions are expressed in the same reference frames.
Units on input are degrees for ra and dec, mas for parallax,
mas/yr for pmra and pmdec, and km/s for the radial velocity.
ref_epoch and out_epoch are given in Julian years.
parallax, pmra, pmdec, and radial_velocity may be None and will enter
the computations as 0 then, except in the case of parallax, which
will be some small value.A variant of ivo_epoch_prop_pos that behave as if parallax
and radial_velocity were both passed as NULL.The function transforms ADQL geometries between various reference systems.
geo can be a POINT, a CIRCLE, or a POLYGON, and the function will return a
geometry of the same type. In the current implementation, from_sys and
to_sys must be literal strings (i.e., they cannot be computed through
expressions or be taken from database columns).
All transforms are just simple rotations, which is only a rough
approximation to the actual relationships between reference systems
(in particular between FK4 and ICRS-based ones). Note that, in particular,
the epoch is not changed (i.e., no proper motions are applied).
We currently support the following reference frames: ICRS, FK5 (which
is treated as ICRS), FK4 (for B1950. without epoch-dependent corrections),
GALACTIC. Reference frame names are case-sensitive.The function takes two strings; the first is a list of words not
containing the hash sign (#), concatenated by hash signs, the second is
a word not containing the hash sign. It returns 1 if, compared
case-insensitively, the second argument is in the list of words coded in
the first argument. The behaviour in case the the second
argument contains a hash sign is unspecified.gavo_hasword returns 1 if needle shows up in haystack, 0 otherwise. This
is for "google-like"-searches in text-like fields. In word, you can
actually employ a fairly complex query language; see
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/textsearch.html
for details.returns a POINT corresponding to the center of the healpix with
the given index at the given order.Returns the index of the (nest) healpix with order containing the
spherical point (ra, dec).
An alternative, 2-argument form
ivo_healpix_index(order INTEGER, p POINT) -> BIGINT
is also available.The aggregate function returns a histogram of val with nbins+2 elements.
Assuming 0-based arrays, result[0] contains the number of underflows (i.e.,
val<lower), result[nbins+1] the number of overflows. Elements 1..nbins
are the counts in nbins bins of width (upper-lower)/nbins. Clients
will have to convert back to physical units using some external
communication, there currently is no (meta-) data as lower and upper in
the TAP response.The function returns 1 if the interval iv contains val, 0 otherwise.
The lower limit is always included in iv, behaviour on the upper
limit is column-specific.The function returns 1 if the interval [l1...h1] overlaps with
the interval [l2...h2]. For the purposes of this function,
the case l1=h2 or l2=h1 is treated as overlap. The function
returns 0 for non-overlapping intervals.ivo_nocasematch returns 1 if pattern matches value, 0 otherwise.
pattern is defined as for the SQL LIKE operator, but the
match is performed case-insensitively. This function in effect
provides a surrogate for the ILIKE SQL operator that is missing from
ADQL.
On this site, this is actually implemented using python's and SQL's
LOWER, so for everything except ASCII, your mileage will vary.The function returns a random number drawn from a normal distribution
with mean mu and width sigma.
Implementation note: Right now, the Gaussian is approximated by
summing up and scaling ten calls to random. This, hence, is not
very precise or fast. It might work for some use cases, and we
will provide a better implementation if this proves inadequate.gavo_simbadpoint queries simbad for an identifier and returns the
corresponding point. Note that identifier can only be a literal,
i.e., as simple string rather than a column name. This is because
our database cannot query simbad, and we probably wouldn't want
to fire off millions of simbad queries anyway; use simbad's own
TAP service for this kind of application.An aggregate function returning all values of
expression within a GROUP contcatenated with delimiterThe function converts a postgres timestamp to julian date.
This is naive; no corrections for timezones, let alone time
scales or the like are done; you can thus not expect this to be
good to second-precision unless you are careful in the construction
of the timestamp.The function converts a postgres timestamp to modified julian date.
This is naive; no corrections for timezones, let alone time
scales or the like are done; you can thus not expect this to be
good to second-precision unless you are careful in the construction
of the timestamp.Written after a table reference, TABLESAMPLE(10) will make the database only use 10% of the rows; these are `somewhat random' in that the system will use random blocks. This should be good enough when just testing queries (and much better than using TOP n).A geometry function creating MOCs. It either takes a string argument with an ASCII MOC ('4/13 17-18 8/3002'), or an order and another geometry.This is the standard SQL COALESCE for providing defaults in case of NULL values.You can compute with vectors here. See https://wiki.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/ADQLVectorMath for an overview of the functions and operators available.The SQL92 CASE expressiontext/tab-separated-valuestsvtext/plaintxttext/csvcsv_baretext/csv;header=presentcsvapplication/jsonjsonapplication/geo+jsongeojsonapplication/x-votable+xmlvotableapplication/x-votable+xml;serialization=BINARY2votable/b2votableb2application/x-votable+xml;serialization=TABLEDATAtext/xmlvotable/tdvotabletdapplication/x-votable+xml;serialization=TABLEDATA;version=1.1text/xmlvotabletd1.1application/x-votable+xml;version=1.1text/xmlvotable1.1application/x-votable+xml;serialization=TABLEDATA;version=1.2text/xmlvotabletd1.2application/x-votable+xml;serialization=TABLEDATA;version=1.5vodmlapplication/x-votable+xml;version=1.5vodmlbtext/htmlhtmlapplication/fitsfits1728003600200002000000020000000https://mercatorvo.ster.kuleuven.be/__system__/tap/run/availabilityhttps://mercatorvo.ster.kuleuven.be/__system__/tap/run/capabilitieshttps://mercatorvo.ster.kuleuven.be/__system__/tap/run/tableMetadatahermesHERMES Data Archive PortalHigh resolution spectra from the HERMES spectrograph at the Flemish
Mercator Telescope, operated by KU Leuven at the Roque de Los
Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma. HERMES (High
Efficiency and Resolution Mercator Echelle Spectrograph) covers the
377-900 nm wavelength range in one fixed setting.hermes.dataHigh resolution spectra from the HERMES spectrograph at the Flemish
Mercator Telescope, operated by KU Leuven at the Roque de Los
Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma. HERMES (High
Efficiency and Resolution Mercator Echelle Spectrograph) covers the
377-900 nm wavelength range in one fixed setting.accrefAccess key for the datameta.ref.url;meta.datasetssa:Access.ReferencecharindexednullableownerOwner of the datacharnullableembargoDate the data will become/became publicacharnullablemimeMIME type of the file servedmeta.code.mimessa:Access.FormatcharnullableaccsizeSize of the data in bytesbytessa:Access.Sizelongnullablessa_dstitleA compact and descriptive designation of the dataset.meta.title;meta.datasetssa:DataID.Titlecharssa_creatordidDataset identifier assigned by the creatormeta.idssa:DataID.CreatorDIDcharnullablessa_pubdidDataset identifier assigned by the publishermeta.ref.ivoidssa:Curation.PublisherDIDcharindexednullablessa_cdateProcessing/Creation datetime;meta.datasetssa:DataID.Datecharnullablessa_pdateDate last published.ssa:Curation.Datecharnullablessa_bandpassBandpass (i.e., rough spectral location) of this dataset; this should be the most appropriate term from the vocabulary http://www.ivoa.net/rdf/messenger.instr.bandpassssa:DataID.Bandpasscharnullablessa_cversionCreator assigned version for this dataset (will be incremented when this particular item is changed).meta.version;meta.datasetssa:DataID.Versioncharnullablessa_targnameCommon name of object observed.meta.id;srcssa:Target.Namecharssa_targclassObject class (star, QSO,...; use Simbad object classification http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-display?data=otypes if at all possible)src.classssa:Target.Classcharnullablessa_redshiftRedshift of target objectsrc.redshiftssa:Target.Redshiftfloatnullablessa_targetposEquatorial (ICRS) position of the target object.pos.eq;srcssa:Target.pos.spointdoublenullablessa_snrSignal-to-noise ratio estimated for this datasetstat.snrssa:Derived.SNRfloatnullablessa_locationICRS location of aperture centerdegpos.eqssa:Char.SpatialAxis.Coverage.Location.Valuedoubleindexednullablessa_apertureAngular diameter of aperturedegphys.angSize;instr.fovssa:Char.SpatialAxis.Coverage.Bounds.Extentfloatnullablessa_dateobsMidpoint of exposure (MJD)dtime.epochssa:Char.TimeAxis.Coverage.Location.Valuedoublenullablessa_timeextExposure durationstime.durationssa:Char.TimeAxis.Coverage.Bounds.Extentfloatnullablessa_specmidMidpoint of region covered in this datasetminstr.bandpassssa:Char.SpectralAxis.Coverage.Location.Valuefloatnullablessa_specextWidth of the spectrumminstr.bandwidthssa:Char.SpectralAxis.Coverage.Bounds.Extentfloatnullablessa_specstartLower value of spectral coordinatemem.wl;stat.minssa:Char.SpectralAxis.Coverage.Bounds.Startfloatnullablessa_specendUpper value of spectral coordinatemem.wl;stat.maxssa:Char.SpectralAxis.Coverage.Bounds.Stopfloatnullablessa_lengthNumber of points in the spectrumssa:Dataset.Lengthintnullablessa_modelData model name and versionssa:Dataset.DataModelcharssa_csysnameSystem RA and Dec are given inssa:CoordSys.SpaceFrame.Namecharssa_timesiTime conversion factor in Osuna-Salgado convention.ssa:Dataset.TimeSIcharnullablessa_spectralsiSpectral conversion factor in Osuna-Salgado conventionssa:Dataset.SpectralSIcharnullablessa_spectralucdUCD of the spectral column in the spectra served; when you have wavelengths, use em.wl for vacuum wavelengths, em.wl;obs.atmos for air wavelengths.meta.ucdssa:Char.SpectralAxis.Ucdcharssa_spectralunitUnit of the spectral columnmeta.unitssa:Char.SpectralAxis.Unitcharssa_fluxsiFlux/magnitude conversion factor in Osuna-Salgado conventionssa:Dataset.FluxSIcharnullablessa_fluxucdUCD of the flux columnmeta.ucdssa:Char.FluxAxis.Ucdcharssa_fluxunitUnit of the flux columnmeta.unitssa:Char.FluxAxis.Unitcharssa_dstypeType of data (spectrum, time series, etc)ssa:Dataset.Typecharnullablessa_publisherPublisher of the datasets included here.meta.curationssa:Curation.Publishercharssa_creatorCreator of the datasets included here.ssa:DataID.CreatorunicodeCharnullablessa_collectionA short handle naming the collection this spectrum belongs to.ssa:DataID.Collectioncharnullablessa_instrumentInstrument or code used to produce these datasetsmeta.id;instrssa:DataID.Instrumentcharnullablessa_datasourceMethod of generation for the data (one of survey, pointed, theory, custom, artificial).ssa:DataID.DataSourcecharnullablessa_creationtypeProcess used to produce the data (archival, cutout, filtered, mosaic, projection, spectralExtraction, or catalogExtraction)ssa:DataID.CreationTypecharnullablessa_referenceURL or bibcode of a publication describing this data.meta.bib.bibcodessa:Curation.Referencecharnullablessa_fluxstaterrorStatistical error in fluxstat.error;phot.flux.density;emssa:Char.FluxAxis.Accuracy.StatErrorfloatnullablessa_fluxsyserrorSystematic error in fluxstat.error.sys;phot.flux.density;emssa:Char.FluxAxis.Accuracy.SysErrorfloatnullablessa_fluxcalibType of flux calibration (ABSOLUTE, CALIBRATED, RELATIVE, NORMALIZED, or UNCALIBRATED).ssa:Char.FluxAxis.Calibrationcharnullablessa_binsizeBin size in wavelengthmem.wl;spect.binSizessa:Char.SpectralAxis.Accuracy.BinSizefloatnullablessa_spectstaterrorStatistical error in wavelengthmstat.error;emssa:Char.SpectralAxis.Accuracy.StatErrorfloatnullablessa_spectsyserrorSystematic error in wavelengthmstat.error.sys;emssa:Char.SpectralAxis.Accuracy.SysErrorfloatnullablessa_speccalibType of wavelength calibrationmeta.code.qualssa:Char.SpectralAxis.Calibrationcharnullablessa_specresResolution (in meters of wavelength) on the spectral axismspect.resolution;em.wlssa:Char.SpectralAxis.Resolutionfloatnullablessa_spaceerrorStatistical error in positiondegstat.error;pos.eqssa:Char.SpatialAxis.Accuracy.StatErrorfloatnullablessa_spacecalibType of calibration in spatial coordinatesmeta.code.qualssa:Char.SpatialAxis.Calibrationcharnullablessa_spaceresSpatial resolution of datadegpos.angResolutionssa:Char.SpatialAxis.Resolutionfloatnullableunique_seqnoThe unique sequence number for this observation, counting every exposure made with this instrument; this number remains constant over multiple reduction steps for the same file.meta.idintssa_regionRough coverage based on location and aperture.pos.outline;obs.fielddoubleindexednullabledatalinkURL of datalink document for this spectrum (cutouts, different formats)charnullable
tap_schema Mercator Observatory Data Archive's Table Access Protocol (TAP) service with
table metadata.tap_schema.schemasSchemas containing tables available for ADQL querying.schema_nameFully qualified schema namecharindexedprimarydescriptionBrief description of the schemaunicodeCharnullableutypeutype if schema corresponds to a data modelcharnullableschema_indexSuggested position this schema should take in a sorted list of schemas from this data center.intnullable
tap_schema.tablesTables available for ADQL querying.schema_nameFully qualified schema namecharnullabletable_nameFully qualified table namecharindexedprimarytable_typeOne of: table, viewcharnullabledescriptionBrief description of the tableunicodeCharnullableutypeutype if the table corresponds to a data modelcharnullabletable_indexSuggested position this table should take in a sorted list of tables from this data centerintnullablesourcerdId of the originating rd (local information)charnullablenrowsThe approximate size of the table in rowslongnullabletap_schema.schemasschema_nameschema_name
tap_schema.columnsColumns in tables available for ADQL querying.table_nameFully qualified table namecharindexedprimarycolumn_nameColumn namecharindexedprimarydescriptionBrief description of columnunicodeCharnullableunitUnit in VO standard formatcharnullableucdUCD of column if anycharnullableutypeUtype of column if anycharnullabledatatypeADQL datatypecharnullablearraysizeArraysize in VOTable notationcharnullablextypeVOTable extended type information (for special interpretation of data content, e.g., timestamps or points)charnullable"size"Legacy length (ignore if you can).intnullableprincipalIs column principal?intindexedIs there an index on this column?intstdIs this a standard column?intsourcerdId of the originating rd (local information)charnullablecolumn_index1-based index of the column in database order.shortnullabletap_schema.tablestable_nametable_name
tap_schema.keysForeign key relationships between tables available for ADQL querying.key_idUnique key identifiercharindexedprimaryfrom_tableFully qualified table namecharnullabletarget_tableFully qualified table namecharnullabledescriptionDescription of this keyunicodeCharnullableutypeUtype of this keycharnullablesourcerdId of the originating rd (local information)charnullabletap_schema.tablesfrom_tabletable_nametap_schema.tablestarget_tabletable_name
tap_schema.key_columnsColumns participating in foreign key relationships between tables
available for ADQL querying.key_idKey identifier from TAP_SCHEMA.keyscharnullablefrom_columnKey column name in the from tablecharnullabletarget_columnKey column in the target tablecharnullablesourcerdId of the originating rd (local information)charnullabletap_schema.keyskey_idkey_id
tap_schema.groupsColumns that are part of groups within tables available for ADQL
querying.table_nameFully qualified table namecharnullablecolumn_nameName of a column belonging to the groupcharnullablecolumn_utypeutype the column within the groupcharnullablegroup_nameName of the groupcharnullablegroup_utypeutype of the groupcharnullablesourcerdId of the originating rd (local information)charnullabletap_schema.tablestable_nametable_name