WFAU Science Archives 2023-2026

天文观测为许多现代天文研究提供了最有效的手段，提供了研究稀有天体和源群体性质所需的观测数据样本。英国在测量天文学方面有着非常强大的历史，爱丁堡的广域天文单位(WFAU)自1999年以目前的名义成立以来，以及其前身--英国皇家天文台的施密特望远镜单元(UKSTU)--长期以来一直站在这项活动的前沿。这笔赠款将支持WFAU继续管理来自若干光学/近红外成像和光谱测量的数据，即：(I)继续进行UKIRT半球测量，并通过纳入PanSTARRS1光学数据进行新的北空光学/近红外测量；(2)完成Vista最终公共调查--VHS、VVV(X)、UltraVISTA和Sharks的数据发布工作；(3)根据UHS和VHS数据的组合创建新的全天近红外天空；(4)出版初级JWST财务处计划的数据，连同UltraVISTA/COSMOS和UKIDSS/UDS领域的现有地面数据；(5)建立新的档案，以公布卫星联盟正在保证的时间内进行的银河和河外调查数据。WFAU增加了这些调查数据集的价值，使用户能够结合外部目录进行查询--无论是存储在爱丁堡的本地副本，还是通过虚拟天文台。在这方面，我们支持多波长天文学，这日益成为观测分析的最重要模式。世界气象组织开发了科学档案系统，安全地存储来自天空测量的数据，并通过互联网以灵活的方式向用户提供这些数据。WFAU在操作这些档案时面临的主要挑战是现代天文测量系统产生的数据量，以及向用户提供数据的必要性，以帮助他们科学地利用这些数据。随着数据量的增加，用户不再能够将他们想要分析的所有数据下载到自己的计算机上，因此，WFAU工作的一个越来越大的重点是开发软件，以便在数据中心内执行一系列基本数据分析任务。用户将能够直接在WFAU档案中的天空测量数据上运行这些数据，然后下载体积小得多的派生数据产品。新的能力将允许用户在不下载数据的情况下分析数据，方法是在数据旁边运行Jupyter Hub服务，并在IRIS(www.iris.ac.uk)云中运行VVV(X)的阿帕奇Spark服务。确保WFAU计划的成功取决于该股内拥有正确技能范围的工作人员。虽然WFAU的计算方面的工作在不断增加，但重要的是，从事科学档案项目工作的WFAU工作人员必须保留与WFAU用户社区有效互动所需的天文专业知识。

Sky surveys underpin much of modern astronomical research, by providing the most efficient means of deriving samples of observational data required for the study of rare objects and of the properties of populations of sources. The UK has a very strong history in survey astronomy and Edinburgh's Wide Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) has long been at the forefront of this activity, both since its creation in its current guise, in 1999, and in its previous incarnation, as the UK Schmidt Telescope Unit (UKSTU) of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.This grant will support WFAU's continuing curation of data from a number of optical/near-infrared imaging and spectroscopic surveys, namely:(i) continuation of the UKIRT Hemisphere Survey and production from it of a new northern-sky optical/NIR survey through incorporation of Pan-STARRS1 optical data; (ii) completion of publication of data from the final VISTA Public Surveys - VHS, VVV(X), UltraVISTA and SHARKs; (iii) creation of a new all-sky near-infrared sky based on the combination of UHS and VHS data; (iv) publication of data from the PRIMER JWST Treasury Program, together with existing ground-based data in the UltraVISTA/COSMOS and UKIDSS/UDS fields; and (v) creation of a new archive to publish data from Galactic and extragalactic surveys being undertaken in guaranteed time by the MOONS Consortium. WFAU adds value to these survey datasets by enabling users to query them in conjunction with external catalogues - either local copies stored in Edinburgh or via the Virtual Observatory. In this, we support multi-wavelength astronomy, which is increasingly the most important mode of observational analysis. WFAU has developed science archive systems which store securely data from sky surveys and make them available to users in a flexible manner via the Internet. The main challenges for WFAU in operating these archives are the volumes of data generated by modern sky survey systems, and the necessity of making the data available to users in a way that helps them to exploit those data scientifically. As data volumes increase, users are no longer able to download to their own computers all the data they want to analyse, so an increasing focus of WFAU work is the development of software to perform a set of basic data analysis tasks within the data centre. Users will be able to run these directly on the sky survey data in WFAU's archives, and then download derived data products, which will be much smaller in size. New capabilities will allow users to analyse data without downloading it, by the running of a Jupyter Hub service next to the data, and an Apache Spark service for VVV(X), both within the IRIS (www.iris.ac.uk) cloud.Ensuring success of the WFAU programme depends on the staff within the Unit having the correct range of skills. While the computational side of WFAU's work is ever increasing, it is important that members of WFAU staff working on science archive project work retain the astronomical expertise required to interact effectively with WFAU's user community.