The Virtual Observatory (VO) is realizing global electronic integration of astronomy data. One of the long-term goals of the U.S. VO project, the Virtual Astronomical Observatory (VAO), is development of services and protocols that respond to the growing size and complexity of astronomy data sets. This paper describes how VAO staff are active in such development efforts, especially in innovativ...

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Here we review some of the main issues related to multi-wavelength source identification and characterization, with particular emphasis on the field of X-ray surveys carried out over the last years. This complex and time-consuming process is going to represent one of the main difficulties over the coming years, when significantly larger surveys, both in area and depth, will be carried out with ...

Феномен мощного радиоизлучения ядра галактики является кратковременной по космологическим масштабам (до ~10лет) эволюционной фазой самых массивных звездных систем, поэтому информация о статистических свойствах радиоисточников в разных диапазонах электромагнитного спектра важна для понимания природы и эволюции галактик. Программные средства виртуальной обсерватории (ВО), разработанные за последн...

Experience with ASTROVIRTEL, scientific analysis of current large data sets, and detailed preparation for the truly huge future missions especially GAIA, provide important lessons for the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory. They demonstrate that the science cases are impressive, specifically allowing new thresholds to be crossed. The AVO is more than just faster cheaper better, it allows the new...

Aims. We study the visibility of sunspots and its influence on observed values of sunspot region parameters. Methods. We use Virtual Observatory tools provided by AstroGrid to analyse a sample of 6862 sunspot regions. By studying the distributions of locations where sunspots were first and last observed on the solar disk, we derive the visibility function of sunspots, the rate of magnetic flux ...

Observatory (iSERVO; www.iservo. edu.au) is a planned partnership of primarily Asia Pacific economies interested in studying, forecasting, and mitigating the damaging effects of large and great earthquakes as well as the tsunamis they produce. The iSERVO concept is founded on the use of modern information technology to simulate the nonlinear dynamical earthquake and tsunami processes at all rel...

A virtual observatory will not only enhance many current scientific investigations, but it will also enable entirely new scientific explorations due to both the federation of vast amounts of multiwavelength data and the new archival services which will, as a necessity, be developed. The detailing of specific science use cases is important in order to properly facilitate the development of the n...

Astronomy is one of the most data-intensive of the sciences. Data technology is accelerating the quality and effectiveness of its research, and the rate of astronomical discovery is higher than ever. As a result, many view astronomy as being in a “Golden Age”, and projects such as the Virtual Observatory are amongst the most ambitious data projects in any field of science. But these powerful to...