WFAU Science Archives 2023-2026

天空调查是现代天文学研究的基础，它提供了最有效的方法来获取观测数据样本，这些样本是研究稀有天体和天体群特性所必需的。英国在天文观测方面有着悠久的历史，爱丁堡的宽视场天文单位（WFAU）长期以来一直处于这项活动的前沿，无论是1999年以目前的名义成立以来，还是在其前身——爱丁堡皇家天文台的英国施密特望远镜单位（UKSTU）。这笔拨款将支持WFAU继续管理来自一些光学/近红外成像和光谱调查的数据，即：(i)通过合并Pan-STARRS1光学数据，继续UKIRT半球调查并由此产生新的北方天空光学/近红外调查；（ii）完成公布VISTA公众调查（VHS、VVV(X)、UltraVISTA和SHARKs）的最终数据；（iii）结合UHS和VHS资料，创造新的全天空近红外天空；（iv）发布PRIMER JWST库计划的数据，以及UltraVISTA/COSMOS和UKIDSS/UDS领域现有的地基数据；(v)建立一个新的档案，以公布由卫星联盟在保证时间内进行的银河和河外调查的数据。WFAU增加了这些调查数据集的价值，使用户可以与外部目录一起查询它们-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，这是越来越重要的观测分析模式。WFAU开发了科学档案系统，可以安全地存储来自天空调查的数据，并通过互联网以灵活的方式向用户提供。WFAU在操作这些档案方面面临的主要挑战是现代巡天系统产生的大量数据，以及必须以一种有助于用户科学地利用这些数据的方式向用户提供这些数据。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工作的一个日益增长的焦点是开发软件来执行数据中心内的一组基本数据分析任务。用户可以直接在WFAU档案中的巡天数据上运行这些程序，然后下载派生的数据产品，这些产品的尺寸将小得多。新的功能将允许用户在不下载数据的情况下分析数据，通过在数据旁边运行Jupyter Hub服务，以及为VVV(X)运行Apache Spark服务，两者都在IRIS （www.iris.ac.uk）云中。确保WFAU方案的成功取决于该股内的工作人员是否具备适当的技能。虽然WFAU工作的计算方面在不断增加，但重要的是，从事科学档案项目工作的WFAU工作人员保持与WFAU用户社区有效互动所需的天文学专业知识。

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.