Welcome to the first Astro Data Lab Newsletter! The purpose of this occasional newsletter is to communicate significant developments within the Astro Data Lab and to solicit feedback from you, our registered users.
Data Lab v2.16 Release
We are happy to announce the release of Data Lab version 2.16. This version includes:
New datasets:
Legacy Survey DR7 As described at legacysurvey.org, LS DR7 is the latest release of the DECam-observed portion of the Legacy Survey, and features >9000 square degrees of imaging and >800 million objects in grz. When combined with the northern LS DR6, Legacy Survey contains nearly 14,000 square degrees of imaging and ~1.2 billion objects in the grz bands. Available data products: database access to catalog tables, image cutouts through the image cutout service, survey files through the LS DR7 file service.
S-PLUS DR1 The S-PLUS survey is using a dedicated telescope at CTIO to map >9000 square degrees in 12 bands, broad-band ugriz and a custom set of seven narrow-band filters, making it ideal for constructing spectral energy distributions of measured objects. DR1 features 160 square degrees of imaging in Stripe 82 and measurements of ~1 million objects. Available data products: database access to catalog tables (list of columns), image cutouts through the image cutout service, survey files through the S-PLUS file service.
SDSS DR14 The Data Lab hosts the SDSS DR14 spectroscopic object catalog and all of the associated spectral files. Available data products: database access to the spectroscopic object catalog (list of columns), survey files through the SDSS DR14 file service.
SkyMapper DR1 The Data Lab database features the SkyMapper DR1 photometric catalog of ~285 million objects observed over 20,000 square degrees of the southern sky. Available data products: database access to the photometric object catalog (list of columns).
TRILEGAL simulated LSST catalog The Data Lab hosts a simulated catalog of stellar populations expected to be detected by the LSST produced by Leo Girardi and Giada Pastorelli using the TRILEGAL simulation. The catalog features 19 billion stars for use in investigating LSST science cases. Available data products: database access to the simulated photometric object catalog (list of columns).
New services:
Crossmatch service You now have the ability to upload tables to your personal database storage space (myDB) and perform efficient crossmatches against tables in the Data Lab database. The service is available through a web interface, or you can use the API, as demonstrated in this example Jupyter notebook.
File service Using the new File service, you can access file-based data products from surveys such as SDSS DR14 (including SDSS/BOSS spectra), the NEWFIRM Medium-Band Survey (I & II), the Infrared Bootes Imaging Survey, the NOAO Deep-Wide Survey, etc., or access publicly shared files from other Data Lab users. Example use cases are demonstrated in Jupyter notebooks.
New downloadable client package:
While Data Lab services are typically meant to be run on the remote server, you can download and install the datalab client package to run the clients on your local hardware.New and updated notebooks:
New notebooks demonstrate how to use new services like the Crossmatch service and File service, or new datasets such as S-PLUS DR1. In addition, we have updated all previous notebooks to follow our current syntax to call Data Lab services. To get the latest notebooks, visit the GitHub repository, or open a Terminal after logging in your notebook server account and type ‘getlatest’ at the command line.Python 2 support ending With the announcement that Python 2 will cease to be maintained past 2020, Astro Data Lab is phasing out support for Python 2.7. Currently, Data Lab client software is compatible with both Python 2.7 and Python 3, and the Data Lab Jupyter notebook server features both Python 2 and Python 3 kernels. However, new notebooks by default use the Python 3 kernel, and future development will be done without requiring Python 2 compatibility. In June 2019, the Python 2 kernel will be removed from the Jupyter notebook server. Please get in touch if you need support with this transition.
Visit us at AAS 233
Data Lab will be featured at the NOAO Booth, which is part of the NSF Pavilion (Booth 113). Stop by during a coffee break to get a personal Data Lab demo and collect Data Lab stickers and postcards! We are also part of Special Session 207: Astrophysics Archives in the 2020s, on Tuesday January 8th, at 10am in Room 606, where we will discuss the role of science platforms in astronomical research.Contact Data Lab
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