RELATED PROJECTS AND LINKS

Virtual Observatory systems

The Virtual Observatory Systems (VOS) Department of the ESO Data Management and Operations Division is based in Garching bei München, Germany. Its main mission is to make the Science Archive Facility (SAF) into a powerful scientific resource for the ESO community and coordinate ESO’s involvement in Virtual Observatory (VO) activities, building on the success of the AstroVirtel and Astrophysical Virtual Observatory projects. The VOS department was created on Nov. 1, 2004 and, at present, includes the Advanced Data Products (ADP) and Virtual Observatory Technology (VOT) groups.

Specific VOS tasks include:

• creation of ADP, i.e., science grade ("level-3") ESO data products;
• ingestion of ADP into a VO-compliant SAF; these will either be produced by the ADP group or by the community. Note that as of Period 75, Principal Investigators of ESO Large Programs are required to return their data products to the ESO archive at the time of publication of their scientific results (see the latest Call for Proposals);
• publication of ADP within the VO infrastructure;
• science-oriented archive interface;
• develop VO technology, standards, and tools for the ESO SAF, also via participation to European VO activities (euro-vo.org), in particular through the VO-TECH project (eurovotech.org).