AstroGrid - the UK's astronomy data-grid project, which will
form the country's contribution to the global VO
URL: http://www.astrogrid.org/
CASU - Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (operated within the Institute of
Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, funded by PPARC Rolling Grant).
URL: http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~mike/casu.
CFITSIO - C/C++ subroutine library for low-level access to FITS data.
URL: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio
DAOphot - community-standard software suite for multiple, simultaneous profile fitting photometry and astrometry for point sources in crowded fields.
DB2 - commercial relational DBMS from IBM
DXS - Deep eXtragalactic Survey component of UKIDSS
DBMS - Data-Base Management System
EDR - Early Data Release of the SDSS
GPS - Galactic Plane Survey component of UKIDSS
GUI - Graphical User Interface
IRMOS - InfraRed Multi-Object Spectrograph for the VLT
JAC - Joint Astronomy Centre at Hawai`i
JREI - Joint Research Equipment Initiative (set up by the DTI, HEFC and the UK Research Councils to provide strategic investment in key scientific infrastructure for research)
LAS - Large Area Survey component of UKIDSS
PHP - Preprocessor Hypertext Protocol
PPARC - Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
PSF - Point Spread Function
RAID - Redundant Array of Interchangeable Disks (robust mass storage with data striping, and hot-swappable disks).
SDSS - Sloan Digital Sky Survey
URL: http://www.sdss.org/
SExtractor - community-standard pixel analysis software suite for detection and parameterisation of sources in an image.
SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol
SQL - Structured Query Language
SQLServer - Commercial relational DBMS product from Microsoft
SSS - SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey (WFAU's flagship legacy digitised optical sky
survey based on Schmidt photographic plate material; the SSS database is
Tbyte in size making it one of the largest object catalogues currently
publicly available).
URL: http://www-wfau.roe.ac.uk/sss
UDS - Ultra-Deep Survey component of UKIDSS
UKIDSS - UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey
URL: http://www.ukidss.org/
UKIRT - United Kingdom Infrared Telescope
VISTA - Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (the UK and ESO's
new 4m survey telescope to be located in Chile; this will have an infrared
camera larger than WFCAM but will not start operating until 2006/7).
URL: http://www.vista.ac.uk/
VOTable - Vitrual Observatory Table; a proposed transfer protocol for
astronomical data in the era of datagrids, e-science and datamining.
URL: http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/doc/VOTable
VLT - Very Large Telescope; and array of 4 8m telescopes operated in Chile by ESO.
VO - Virtual Observatory: new concept in e-science where data- and compute-grids are linked to form a data mining resource for research in astronomy
WFAU - Wide Field Astronomy Unit (operated within the Institute for Astronomy
at the University of Edinburgh, funded in the main by PPARC Rolling Grant).
URL: http://www.roe.ac.uk/wfau
WFCAM - Wide Field CAMera; the new infrared imager for UKIRT
URL: http://www.roe.ac.uk/atc/projects/wfcam/index.html
WSA - WFCAM Science Archive; the point of access for the astronomy
community to obtain WFCAM data and undertake astronomical reasearch.
URL: http://www.roe.ac.uk/~nch/wfcam
XML - eXtensible Markup Language
XMM - Xray Multiple-Mirror telescope (spacecraft Xray observatory)