Development of Open Research Data Analysis Services supplementing astronomical Open Research Data
Category
Explore
Institutions
EPFL
Data type
Cloud-based ORD data analysis services (ORDAS)
Field
Astronomy
Researchers
Jean-Paul Kneib, Emma Tolley, Andrii Neronov, Volodymyr Savchenko
Description
The goal of the project was to prototype web-based Open Research Data Analysis Services (ORDAS) in the domain of astronomy, aiming at two specific next-generation astronomical observatories in which LASTRO laboratory is involved: Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO, a gamma-ray telescope) and Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO, a radio telescope). During the first year of the project, we have concentrated on the development of general framework for providing online data analysis services for astronomical telescopes and on implementation of this general framework for the specific use case of CTAO. During the last six months we have added the use case of SKAO. The CTAO ORDAS provide access to workflows of Monte-Carlo simulations of CTAO data, using the Gammapy software package, simulations of the properties of extragalactic gamma-ray sources using CRbeam package and analysis of real gamma-ray data using ORD of already operating CTAO-like telescope HESS. For SKAO, the services provide access to workflows for extraction of images and spectra of radio sources observed with MeerKAT and MWA precursors of SKAO. The resulting web-based data analysis services are accessible through several frontends, including the Multi-Messenger Online Data Analysis platform (MMODA, https://mmoda.io) and Galaxy platform (https://usegalaxy.eu) developed in the context of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The service is also accessible to a Python Application Programming Interface (API) implemented in a package oda_api (https://github.com/oda-hub/oda_api) that can be used from within Python scripts and notebooks running locally on user laptop. To promote the ORD and ORDAS practices across astronomical community and in multi-disciplinary research, we have organised an AstroORDAS workshop that took place on Ferbruary 5-6 2025 at EPFL.