Classifying the SEDs of Herbig Ae/Be stars
The overall goal of this tutorial is to become familiar with VOSpec. For that, we are going to build the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) of two Herbig Ae/Be stars, compare them and categorise them as group 1 or group 2 Herbig Ae/Be stars.
The HI shells of the Small Magellanic Cloud
This tutorial employs the Aladin VO client to explore neutral hydrogen shells around the SMC; it demonstrates using image servers, catalog servers, and advanced overplotting within Aladin.
Advanced Usage of HiPS and MOCs
This course introduces advanced usage of Hierarchical Progressive Surveys (HiPS) and Multi-Order Coverage (MOC) maps in Aladin. Using this document, you will learn how to handle a problem like : “I have a set of images. I would like to select regions in my observations that are above a given threshold in another survey (e.g. at low extinction), retrieve objects from very large catalogs (e.g. Gaia + WISE) in these non-trivial shapes and not-necessarily-connected regions, and combine them to visualise some quantities (e.g. color color diagram).“
Multi-instrument, multi-wavelength study of high energy sources with the Virtual Observatory
This tutorial demonstrates how to use several standard tools of the Virtual Observatory (VO) for data mining and multiple waveband data analysis. The step-by-step application below focuses on towards applications in the gamma-ray and high energy domain, but also involves observational data from other wavebands.
Compute Redshifts of Quasars Using SPLAT-VO
This tutorial uses SPLAT-VO to search the VO registry for spectra of galaxies and quasars. From the obtained spectra, the Hydrogen Lyman Alpha line will be used to compute redshift and velocity
Adding catalog data to object lists using the VO
This brief tutorial shows you how to quickly add proper motions and photometry from Gaia to (almost) any object list using the Virtual Observatory. The VO protocol most suited to this kind of this is TAP ("table access protocol") and lets you transfer data and queries to database servers. In the example, we will be using TOPCAT as a client. There is no lock-in to it: There are libraries and other tools allowing an integration of TAP operations into arbitrary workflows – that's what standards are about. Tutorial supplements apply the techniques to Simbad, show how to use TAP from Python, and introduce UCDs.
This tutorial introduces a few techniques for working with image services in the Virtual Observatory (VO) in general, using services containing plate scans as examples. It will discuss both exploratory, interactive use, and scripting using pyVO.
The GAVO puzzlers are little training problems solvable by standard VO techniques (data discovery, SIAP, Cone Search, TAP). They assume some familiarity with common astronomical concepts (they were originally given out during meetings of the German Astronomische Gesellschaft) but are designed to be solvable using common, standard tools and in reasonable time. Solutions are also given.
Explore the Pleiades with TOPCAT and Aladin
As stars in open star clusters are formed from the same matter at the same time and have only a small velocity dispersion, it is relatively easy to identify them from the background stars. In this tutorial, we will identify the members of the Pleiades kinematically and get an idea of our success by examining a color-magnitude diagram using TOPCAT, Aladin, and a few VO services.
This is a course on the Virtual Observatory's main query language ADQL (short for Astronomical Data Query Language), which is a SQL dialect standardised so users do not have to learn new languages each time they want to use a new resource. We also introduce the basic aspects of the Table Access Protocol TAP, which transports ADQL queries, their results as well as the metadata necessary to write meaningful queries. The course comes with many exercises, most of which also have solutions. We hope it is suitable for both self-study and as lecture notes in teacher-led situations.
This is a course on pyVO, an astropy-affiliated Python library implementing client parts for many protocols in the Virtual Observatory: Simple discovery protocols like SCS, SIAP, and SSAP as well as the sophisticated Table Access Protocol TAP, which allows users to send complex queries to remote tables and retrieve metadata-rich results. There is also an interface to the VO Registry to enable data and service discovery. The course comes with many exercises, most of which also have solutions. We hope it is suitable for both self-study and as lecture notes in teacher-led situations.
This is a course on using the Virtual Observatory (VO), an international research data infrastructure in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Starting with a brief discussion of some general concepts, it introduces some of the major client programs like TOPCAT and Aladin, together with some simple discovery protocols. A first focus topic is the query language ADQL, which is treated within the equivalent of three lectures. The second major focus of the course is the premier Python interface to the VO, pyVO, which is used to also more deeply investigate the topics treated before. The course is complemented by a number of side tracks, brief discussions of more fundamental or more specialised VO topics. The course comes with many exercises, most of which also have solutions. We hope it is suitable for both self-study and as lecture notes in teacher-led situations. In the latter case, it is designed to work as a semester-long course with two hours of lectures and lab work each per week.
Outlier Analysis in Low-Resolution Spectra: DFBS and Beyond
Low-resolution spectra like those resulting from objective prism observations or the RP/BP instrument on board of the Gaia astrometry satellite enable a wealth of interesting science. This use case investigates one use leading up to combining many VO resources: The identification of misclassified objects from reference databases.
Distance of the Andromeda galaxy
Within this use case for high school students and adanced amateurs you measure the linear distance of the Andromeda Galaxy following the steps of the astronomers who first measured it, climbing an important step of the so-called cosmic distance ladder. The use case requires the identification of variable stars of the Cepheid class and the determination of the relation between their period and their intrinsic luminosity.
Proper motion of the Barnard's star
Within this case you learn that stars that seem "fixed" on the sky may actually move, even if their motion is so slow for the naked eye to be undetectable. You compare two photographs of the Barnard's Star taken several years apart and will be able to estimate its displacement on the sky. Your estimate will be very close to actual measurements.
Identifying Brown Dwarf candidates in 2MASS and SDSS
This tutorial is a comprehensive scientific usecase in which brown dwarf candidates in 2MASS and SDSS are identyfied. The surveys are queried using ADQL, and unncertainties in the data are solved with TOPCAT and Aladin.
Within this use case you determine the mass of Jupiter by observing the orbits of the Galileian moons and by inserting these data into Kepler's laws.
Within this use case you learn about supernovae, exploding or exploded stars. In particular you will use information on the Crab Nebula (the 1054 aD supernova registered by Chinese astronomers) to derive its distance: an example of how some very important information may be gained from very simple arguments and geometry.
Within this use case you learn about motion of the planets both around the Sun and in the sky, planetary conjunctions and what might have been the Star of Bethlehem.
Within this use case you discover the shapes of galaxies and their classification according to the Hubble diagram. You are offered sequences of galaxies with different morphologies and are asked to order them. The morphological classification of galaxies is still in use even if we have discovered that the Hubble diagram "per se" has no direct physical or evolutionary meaning. Besides introducing the main shapes of galaxies, the use case offer a demonstration of the classification process, a fundamental tool of astronomers.
Confirmation of an apparent supernova
Within this intermediate use case you learn about supernovae (see also the tutorial “Distance to the Crab Nebula“, ivo://edu.euro-vo.org/tutorials/08_m1_distance) and determine the celestial coordinates of a just discovered candidate supernova on an provided image without astrometric calibration. This use case provides a glimpse of an activity that is representative of the practical tasks that astronomers have to perform when they analyze data.
Stars have different colors and luminosities. Following this tutorial we will learn what star luminosity and color are, and which information about stellar evolution we can obtain from them.
The Earth rotates around its polar axis and orbits around the Sun: the sky above us (the celestial sphere) is in constant apparent motion. Stellarium is the perfect tool to demonstrate the motions of the sky, the use of coordinates and to illustrate constellations.
Within this use case you learn about Aladin's main features, each presented with examples taken from its most common use.
Within this use case you meet representatives of the most interesting categories of celestial objects. From stellar clusters to galaxies. All objects are from the Messier catalog that includes some of the most viewed objects of the deep sky.
Within this use case you discover the shape and thickness of the disc of our own Galaxy by counting stars within and around the Milky Way. With the use of both Aladin and Stellarium you draw the line corresponding to the disc of the Milky Way in a coordinate diagram.
Within this use case you learn about Stellarium's main features, each presented with examples taken from its most common use.
The Constellations of the Zodiac
Within this use case you learn about the constellations of the Zodiac, i.e. those crossed by the apparent path of the Sun during the year. Together with some characteristics the orbital motion of the Earth, in this use case you also find a short excursion into history of astronomy. The use case also introduces the precession of the equinoxes.
Within this use case you learn about Kepler's laws, a cornerstone of astronomy and a fundamental brick of both Newton's and Einstein's theories of gravitation. This use case is complemented by use cases 10 and 16 (at different levels of difficulty.
Within this case you discover the geometry of the orbit of the Moon and the nature of its phases. As special case of the circumstances of Moon's orbit, the use case introduces the eclipses, both of Moon and Sun.
Within this use case you recognize a physical association of stars close in space as opposed to a superpositon created by projection effects of stars very far one from the others. The key measure is distance derived from parallax. With the true members of the association (open cluster) you create a Herzsprung-Russell diagram as in the tutorial “the stars” (ivo://edu.gavo.org/eurovo/aida_stars). The Herzsprung-Russell diagram of stellar clusters is very important because of the low noise of few unrelated stars. If used in the classroom this advanced use case requires a reasonable understanding of histograms and bidimensional scatter diagrams. It is also rather long to perform from beginning to end.
TOPCAT and Aladin working together
This tutorial will show how tabular data can be easily transferred from Topcat to Aladin or the other way, and it will illustrate the benefits of this inter-client communication for VO users. This is shown with a quick look at filtering members of the Coma Cluster from SDSS.
Discovery of Brown Dwarfs mining the 2MASS and SDSS databases
Brown dwarfs are objects occupying the gap between the least massive stars and the most massive planets. They are intrinsically faint objects so their detection is not straighforward and, in fact, was almost impossible until the advent of global surveys at deep optical and near-infrared bands like SDSS, 2MASS or DENIS among others. We propose here to mine the 2MASS-PSC and SDSS-DR9 databases to identify T-type brown dwarfs through an appropriate combination of colours in the optical and the infra-red, an approach that perfectly fits into the Virtual Observatory.
Determination of stellar physical parameters using SPECFLOW
An investigation of physical properties of the stars HD 232862 and Vega using the Specflow and Cassis tools.
In this tutorial you will learn about asteroids, a very interesting and current topic in our exploration of the Solar System and of planetary formation. You will learn about their orbital characteristics by querying a database. Intermediate computer skills are recommended, as the tutorial requires the (guided) query of online electronic databases and use of histograms.
An introduction to the CDS services and tools
This tutorial shows how to use the CDS tools to gather information on specific astronomical objects. The tutorial covers the search for information on NGC 4039 in the CDS Portal, the search for data on NGC 4039 in Aladin, and the omparison of the coverages of Sky Surveys and select interacting galaxies that have SDSS and GALEX data.
Within this use case you learn about the difference between intrinsic linear size and apparent angular size, a difference that is frequently at the center of astronomical problems. Star clusters are the objects used to illustrate this difference. You also learn some basic facts about star clusters, whose distribution in space has helped us to understand the structure of our Milky Way. Thanks to Aladin, you will be able to explore their distribution on the sky on your own.
RAVE Radial Velocities with TOPCAT and Aladin
Create an all-sky map of RAVE stars using TOPCAT or Aladin. Also shows how to draw proper motion vectors with TOPCAT.
Introduction to Simulation Databases Using CosmoSim
This tutorial shows how to do first SQL-queries on cosmological databases, including retrieving mass functions, extracting merger trees or particles of a specific dark matter halo.
Introduction to Simulation Databases - Density Fields and Dark Matter Halos
This tutorial was created for a physics teacher workshop (~ high school level). It shows how to extract density fields and information on dark matter halos from the CosmoSim database using SQL queries. It is optimized for brevity.
Astrometric Calibration using Aladin
The VO client Aladin offers powerful facilities of creating an astrometrical calibration to images lacking WCS (World Coordinate System) information. This tutorial shows how to go about doing this for an image of the Ring Nebula in Lyr.
Data Discovery Using the Virtual Observatory Registry
There are many ways to access registry data. A fairly powerful one is the Web Interface to the Relational Registry (WIRR for short) at http://dc.g-vo.org/WIRR To actually speak to the VO services discovered, clients speaking the service's protocols are still required. In this tutorial, Topcat plays that role. Starting from a simple use case, we work up to investigating the Tully-Fisher relation in different bands using independently discovered resources.
The tutorial uses VOSA to analyse members of the Collinder 69 open cluster by crossmatching a given local set of objects and accesses VO services to crossmatch the objects with 2MASS to receive colors. The resulting SEDs are analysed using different fit functions.
TOPCAT/STILTS Advanced Tutorial
This tutorial is a dense course through the advanced functions of TOPCAT and STILTS. It covers detailed information of how to use TOPCAT and STILTS to find data in the VO, access them, perform crossmatches and how to do visualisations.
Exploring Gaia data with TOPCAT and STILTS
This tutorial uses data from Gaia DR2 to lead you through some of the capabilities of TOPCAT and STILTS. Use cases covered include a studies of the globular cluster M4 in proper motion space and the open cluster Hyades in the full phase space, matches between Gaia and HST data, and the creation of Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams.
You can also search for tutorial-like material on WIRR using further constraints, just as you would for data discovery.
If you are looking for tutorials using a certain tool, you can do a search for resources related to ASCL identifiers. For instance, here are material using TOPCAT, using Aladin, using Cassis, using Stellarium, using pyVO.