The Wide Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU)

The Wide Field Astronomy Unit at the IfA undertakes two main tasks:

1. Provides science-ready queryable survey archives to the community
2. Contributes to technical development of survey-astronomy related projects

The primary science archives we currently provide are:

• The WFCAM Science Archiv (WSA), including all the UKIDSS surveys, but also other WFCAM data.
• The VISTA Science Archive (VSA), including all the public VISTA surveys apart from UltraVISTA.
• The all-sky multi-epoch SuperCosmos Science Archive (SSA) with a uniform digitisation of both the POSS and the UK Schmidt surveys. As well as the main catalogues, we also provide a pixel data cut-out service, access to the SuperCOSMOS Halpha Survey (SHS), and unique variability data from 200 plates over 25 years in Field 287.
• The 6dF Galaxy Survey (6dFGS) - 136,304 spectra.
• The Omegacam Science Archive (OSA) from VST will be appearing soon. (A draft version is already available to VST-ATLAS consortium members.)
• Along with the science archives for which we have primary responsibility, we hold mirror copies of many popular databases, which are crossmatched with our primary archives - for example DSS, WISE, 2MASS, NVSS, GALEX, and so on. See for example the scheme browser.
• As well as the above digital databases, we still have the original plates from many years of the UK Schmidt along with copies of plates from the Palomar Schmidt and ESO. As well as the main survey plates, there are roughly 16,000 other plates, most of which have not been digitised. Search the plate datebase.

Our main project involvements are currently as follows :

• We are part of the GAIA Data Flow System, and in particular have been working on characterising and predicting radiation damage effects on the detectors. Together with colleagues at ESAC, Cambridge and elsewhere, we are also part of the development of the user interface system.
• We have been a key part of the development of the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS), scientifically as well as technically.
• We are a core part of the planning and development for data processing and data utilisation for the Euclid mission, with a particular emphasis on the weak lensing maps.
• We contribute in various ways to the development of the Virtual Observatory, originally by leadership of the AstroGrid consortium (archived), and now by participation in the Euro-VO partnership, and by membership in various IVOA working groups. We have recently started a new STFC-funded project called Astrotrop, working with geosciences colleagues to re-purpose VO software for tropical forest monitoring.
• We explore new technologies to improve our services in various ways. For example, we are currently experimenting with the column oriented database system MonetDB which can potentially speed up time for large queries by a large factor. We have also been developing a new style of user interface which has much better flexibility and VO-integration. This will be rolled out in the near future.
• You can still find web pages with information on our historical involvements - for example the UK Schmidt Telescope Unit (UKSTU); the SuperCOSMOS plate scanning facility, and the old version of SSS data access; the 6DF fibre spectrograph on the UK Schmidt; the AAO/UKST H-alpha Survey; the VISTA Data Flow System (VDFS) development notes; and the archived AstroGrid pages.

Finally, you may find amusing and indeed helpful the zoomable billion star mosaic of the Milky Way based on UKIDSS and VISTA data. The press release based on this mosaic was for a while one of the most-read items on the BBC news page!

View The orignal UKIDSS GPS mosaic .

Dr Bob Mann, Director
WFAU, Institute for Astronomy
Royal Observatory
Blackford Hill
Edinburgh
EH9 3HJ
UK

Tel +44 131 668 8356 (office)
or +44 131 668 8100 (switchboard)

The Royal Observatory Edinburgh comprises the UK Astronomy Technology Centre of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Edinburgh, the Higgs Centre for Innovation and the ROE Visitor Centre.