36,128 research outputs found
The Footprint Database and Web Services of the Herschel Space Observatory
Data from the Herschel Space Observatory is freely available to the public
but no uniformly processed catalogue of the observations has been published so
far. To date, the Herschel Science Archive does not contain the exact sky
coverage (footprint) of individual observations and supports search for
measurements based on bounding circles only. Drawing on previous experience in
implementing footprint databases, we built the Herschel Footprint Database and
Web Services for the Herschel Space Observatory to provide efficient search
capabilities for typical astronomical queries. The database was designed with
the following main goals in mind: (a) provide a unified data model for
meta-data of all instruments and observational modes, (b) quickly find
observations covering a selected object and its neighbourhood, (c) quickly find
every observation in a larger area of the sky, (d) allow for finding solar
system objects crossing observation fields. As a first step, we developed a
unified data model of observations of all three Herschel instruments for all
pointing and instrument modes. Then, using telescope pointing information and
observational meta-data, we compiled a database of footprints. As opposed to
methods using pixellation of the sphere, we represent sky coverage in an exact
geometric form allowing for precise area calculations. For easier handling of
Herschel observation footprints with rather complex shapes, two algorithms were
implemented to reduce the outline. Furthermore, a new visualisation tool to
plot footprints with various spherical projections was developed. Indexing of
the footprints using Hierarchical Triangular Mesh makes it possible to quickly
find observations based on sky coverage, time and meta-data. The database is
accessible via a web site (http://herschel.vo.elte.hu) and also as a set of
REST web service functions.Comment: Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronom
Scale-discretised ridgelet transform on the sphere
We revisit the spherical Radon transform, also called the Funk-Radon
transform, viewing it as an axisymmetric convolution on the sphere. Viewing the
spherical Radon transform in this manner leads to a straightforward derivation
of its spherical harmonic representation, from which we show the spherical
Radon transform can be inverted exactly for signals exhibiting antipodal
symmetry. We then construct a spherical ridgelet transform by composing the
spherical Radon and scale-discretised wavelet transforms on the sphere. The
resulting spherical ridgelet transform also admits exact inversion for
antipodal signals. The restriction to antipodal signals is expected since the
spherical Radon and ridgelet transforms themselves result in signals that
exhibit antipodal symmetry. Our ridgelet transform is defined natively on the
sphere, probes signal content globally along great circles, does not exhibit
blocking artefacts, supports spin signals and exhibits an exact and explicit
inverse transform. No alternative ridgelet construction on the sphere satisfies
all of these properties. Our implementation of the spherical Radon and ridgelet
transforms is made publicly available. Finally, we illustrate the effectiveness
of spherical ridgelets for diffusion magnetic resonance imaging of white matter
fibers in the brain.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, matches version accepted by EUSIPCO, code
available at http://www.s2let.or
Searchable Sky Coverage of Astronomical Observations: Footprints and Exposures
Sky coverage is one of the most important pieces of information about
astronomical observations. We discuss possible representations, and present
algorithms to create and manipulate shapes consisting of generalized spherical
polygons with arbitrary complexity and size on the celestial sphere. This shape
specification integrates well with our Hierarchical Triangular Mesh indexing
toolbox, whose performance and capabilities are enhanced by the advanced
features presented here. Our portable implementation of the relevant spherical
geometry routines comes with wrapper functions for database queries, which are
currently being used within several scientific catalog archives including the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Hubble Legacy
Archive projects as well as the Footprint Service of the Virtual Observatory.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PAS
Approximation and Reconstruction from Attenuated Radon Projections
Attenuated Radon projections with respect to the weight function are shown to be closely related to the orthogonal
expansion in two variables with respect to . This leads to an algorithm
for reconstructing two dimensional functions (images) from attenuated Radon
projections. Similar results are established for reconstructing functions on
the sphere from projections described by integrals over circles on the sphere,
and for reconstructing functions on the three-dimensional ball and cylinder
domains.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figure
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