Hubble Space Telescope Data Analysis In Europe
R. Albrecht, Giorgio Ivan Russo · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1986
The Hubble Space Telescope project, a joint project between NASA and ESA, will provide the European astronomical community with a source of high quality astronomical data on a routine basis. Recognizing the fact that data analysis facilities at many astronomical institutions in Europe are not adequate to analyze HST data in an efficient manner, ESA has, in cooperation with the European Southern Observatory, established the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF), with the explicit task (among others) of improving the data analysis situation. The European data analysis software situation is characterized by organizational and technological incompatibilities. This paper describes the concepts which were developed together with other European centers and with the Space Telescope Science Institute (ST ScI), to maintain compatibility on various differenet levels: data, applications programs, and command language. Standard Interfaces have been developed and are being used to port application S/W between systems. To make maximum use of the available resources it is attractive to implement a computer network, through which European astronomical institutions can communicate among each other and with the ST ScI. Our concepts and the results of initial trials are described. Perhaps the most important single development within the ST-ECF is the European HST Science Data Archive. This is a joint project with the ST ScI and covers the management and transfer to Europe of HST science data. The archive is based on dedicated Data Base Manage-ment hardware, and an optical disk data storage facility. The paper describes the implementation of the archive in a VAX/VMS environment and the interfaces to the data analysis system.