Norman R. Hill

SSOS: A Moving-Object Image Search Tool for Asteroid Precovery

While regular archive searches can find images at a fixed location, they cannot find images of moving targets such as asteroids. The Solar System Object Search (SSOS) at the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre allows users to search for images of moving objects. SSOS accepts as input either a list of observations, an object designation, a set of orbital elements, or a user-generated ephemeris for an object. It then searches for observations of that object over a range of dates. The user is then presented with a list of images containing that object from a variety of archives. Initially created to search the CFHT MegaCam archive, SSOS has been extended to other telescope archives including Gemini, Subaru/SuprimeCam, HST, and several ESO instruments for a total of 1.6 million images. The SSOS tool is located on the web at: this http URL

CANFAR: the Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomical Research

The Canadian Advanced Network For Astronomical Research (CANFAR) is a 2 1/2-year project that is delivering a network-enabled platform for the accessing, processing, storage, analysis, and distribution of very large astronomical datasets. The CANFAR infrastructure is being implemented as an International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) compliant web service infrastructure. A challenging feature of the project is to channel all survey data through Canadian research cyberinfrastructure. Sitting behind the portal service, the internal architecture makes use of high-speed networking, cloud computing, cloud storage, meta-scheduling, provisioning and virtualisation. This paper describes the high-level architecture and the current state of the project.

The Archives of the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre

In 1986, with the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope imminent, the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (DAO) established an agreement with the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) whereby the DAO would receive a copy of HST data and serve as the Canadian archive centre . The Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC) was the group which was formed to manage the Canadian HST archive.