Starlink Project

Last updated
Starlink logo Starlink Project logo.png
Starlink logo

The Starlink Project, referred to by users as Starlink and by developers as simply The Project, was a UK astronomical computing project which supplied general-purpose data reduction software. Until the late 1990s, it also supplied computing hardware and system administration personnel to UK astronomical institutes. In the former respect, it was analogous to the US IRAF project.

Contents

The project was formally started in 1980, though the funding had been agreed, and some work begun, a year earlier. It was closed down when its funding was withdrawn by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council in 2005. In 2006, the Joint Astronomy Centre released its own updated version of Starlink and took over maintenance; the task was passed again in mid-2015 to the East Asian Observatory. The latest version was released on 2018 July 19.

Part of the software is relicensed under the GNU GPL while some of it remain under the original custom licence. [1]

History

From its beginning, the project aimed to cope with the ever-increasing data volumes which astronomers had to handle. A 1982 paper exclaimed that astronomers were returning from observing runs (a week or so of observations at a remote telescope) with more than 10 Gigabits of data on tape; [2] at the end of its life the project was rolling out libraries to handle data of more than 4 Gigabytes per single image.

Starlink c. 1999 Starlink sites map test1.svg
Starlink c. 1999

The project provided centrally-purchased (and thus discounted) hardware, professional system administrators, and the developers to write astronomical data-reduction applications for the UK astronomy community and beyond. At its peak size in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the project had a presence at around 30 sites, located at most of the UK universities with an astronomy department, plus facilities at the Joint Astronomy Centre, the home of UKIRT and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. The number of active developers fluctuated between five and more than a dozen.

By 1982, the project had a staff of 17, serving about 400 users at six sites, using seven VAXen (six VAX-11/780s and one VAX-11/750, representing a total of about 6.5 GB of disk space). They were networked from the outset, first with DECNET and later with X.25.

Between 1992 and 1995 the project switched to UNIX (and switched the networking to TCP/IP), supporting Digital UNIX on Alpha-based systems, and Solaris on systems from Sun Microsystems. By the late 1990s it was additionally supporting Linux, and by 2005 it was supporting Red Hat Linux, Solaris, and Tru64 UNIX. It was about this time that the project open-sourced its software (using the GNU General Public License; it had previously had an "academic use only" licence), and reworked its build system so that the software could be built on a much broader range of POSIX-like systems, including OS X and Cygwin.

Though it was not explicitly funded to do so, the project was an early participant in the Virtual Observatory movement, and contributed to the IVOA. One of its VO applications was TOPCAT, development of which continues, with AstroGrid funding.

Applications, libraries, and other facilities

The project produced a number of applications and libraries, including:

GAIA
The main GUI application, which acts as a general astronomical image viewer, as well as a front end to many of the other applications.
ORAC-DR
The ORAC-DR data reduction system, developed at JAC Hawai'i, is a data processing pipeline for incoming data. It is in use for online data reduction at UKIRT and JCMT for a variety of instruments. This is not a Starlink application as such, but it is tightly integrated with the Starlink suite, and by default uses Starlink software as its application engines. See the ORAC-DR home page for further details.
KAPPA
A suite of general-purpose data-analysis and visualisation tools, usable both from the command-line and graphically. It provides general-purpose applications that have wide applicability, concentrating on image processing, data visualisation, and manipulating NDF components. It integrates with other Starlink packages. In a wider context, KAPPA offers facilities not in IRAF, for instance handling of data errors, quality masking, a graphics database, availability from the shell, as well as more n-dimensional applications, widespread use of data axes, and a different style. It integrates with instrument packages developed at UK observatories. With the automatic data conversion and the availability of KAPPA and other Starlink packages from within the IRAF command language, it's possible to pick the best of the relevant tools from both systems to get the job done.
CCDPACK
A package of programs for reducing CCD-like data. They allow you to debias, remove dark current, pre-flash, flatfield, register, resample, normalize and combine your data.
AST
A flexible and powerful library for handling World Coordinate Systems, partly based on the SLALIB library. If you are writing software for astronomy and need to use celestial coordinates (e.g. RA and Dec), spectral coordinates (e.g. wavelength, frequency, etc.), or other coordinate system information, then this library should be of interest. It provides solutions for most of the problems you will meet and allows you to write robust and flexible software. It is able to read and write WCS information in a variety of formats, including FITS-WCS. It has Fortran, C and Python bindings.
SLALIB
A library of routines intended to make accurate and reliable positional-astronomy applications easier to write. Most SLALIB routines are concerned with astronomical position and time, but a number have wider trigonometrical, numerical or general applications. As well as this GPL version, there is also a commercial version of SLALIB available from its original author.
HDS
A Hierarchical Data System—is a portable, flexible system for storing and retrieving data, and takes over from a computer's filing system at the level of an individual file. A conventional file effectively contains a 1-dimensional sequence of data elements, whereas an HDS file can contain a more complex structure. It predates the Hierarchical Data Format by several years.
NDF
NDF is the project's principal data format. Built upon HDS the N-dimensional Data Format—is for storing bulk data in the form of n-dimensional arrays of numbers: mostly spectra, images, and cubes. It supports concepts such as quality, data errors, world coordinate systems, and Metadata. It is also extensible to handle user-defined information.
ADAM
The ADAM environment was a standardised software environment developed initially by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and then adopted and developed by Starlink between 1985 and 1990. It was initially designed as a telescope control system, installed at the Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, the William Herschel Telescope at the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes on La Palma, and at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea (where it is still working in legacy systems), but its role expanded to cover graphics, data access, interprocess communication, and the full range of functionality required to support a diverse range of interoperable applications. Although it is no longer seriously used for telescope control, other layers of it live on in the current versions of the Starlink applications and libraries.

The project also produced a number of cookbooks on various astronomical topics.

By the end, the project's code base consisted of around 100 components, totalling around 2,100,000 source lines of code written by the project or curated by it, in various languages including Fortran, C, C++, Java, Perl and Tcl/Tk, plus another 700,000 lines of customised third-party code.[ citation needed ]

Obtaining the software

At present, though funding for the project has ceased, the software is still available, either as pre-built distributions, or from a Git repository. [3] The Astrophysics Source Code Library maintains an entry on Starlink. [4]

The Joint Astronomy Centre took over the maintenance of the Starlink codebase (with support from STFC), and made the following releases: [5]

The East Asian Observatory has now taken over co-ordination and maintenance of Starlink software, and it has made the following releases: [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) is an open standard defining a digital file format useful for storage, transmission and processing of data: formatted as multi-dimensional arrays, or tables. FITS is the most commonly used digital file format in astronomy. The FITS standard was designed specifically for astronomical data, and includes provisions such as describing photometric and spatial calibration information, together with image origin metadata.

IDL, short for Interactive Data Language, is a programming language used for data analysis. It is popular in particular areas of science, such as astronomy, atmospheric physics and medical imaging. IDL shares a common syntax with PV-Wave and originated from the same codebase, though the languages have subsequently diverged in detail. There are also free or costless implementations, such as GNU Data Language (GDL) and Fawlty Language (FL).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IRAF</span> Software collection for astronomical data reduction and data analysis

IRAF is a collection of software written at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) geared towards the reduction of astronomical images and spectra in pixel array form. This is primarily data taken from imaging array detectors such as CCDs. It is available for all major operating systems for mainframes and desktop computers. IRAF was designed cross-platform, supporting VMS and UNIX-like operating systems. Use on Microsoft Windows was made possible by Cygwin in earlier versions, and can be today done with the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Today, it is primarily used on macOS and Linux.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robotic telescope</span>

A robotic telescope is an astronomical telescope and detector system that makes observations without the intervention of a human. In astronomical disciplines, a telescope qualifies as robotic if it makes those observations without being operated by a human, even if a human has to initiate the observations at the beginning of the night or end them in the morning. It may have software agents using artificial intelligence that assist in various ways such as automatic scheduling. A robotic telescope is distinct from a remote telescope, though an instrument can be both robotic and remote.

The Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) is a digitized version of several photographic astronomical surveys of the night sky, produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute between 1983 and 2006.

The Joint Astronomy Centre (JAC) was a management organisation based in Hilo, Hawaii, which from c.1980-2015 operated two large telescopes at Mauna Kea Observatory on behalf of an international consortium from the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands, and provided support for other telescopes and public outreach activities. The JAC also maintained the Starlink Project between 2006 and 2015. Following withdrawal of funding by the partner nations, on March 1, 2015, the Joint Astronomy Centre closed and the facility was handed over to the East Asian Observatory which now runs the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Observatory, Edinburgh</span> Observatory

The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (ROE) is an astronomical institution located on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh. The site is owned by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The ROE comprises the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) of STFC, the Institute for Astronomy of the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Edinburgh, and the ROE Visitor Centre.

The eSTAR project was a multi-agent system that aimed to implement a heterogeneous network of robotic telescopes for automated observing, and ground-based follow-up to transient events. The project is a joint collaboration between the Astrophysics Group of the University of Exeter and the Astrophysics Research Institute at Liverpool John Moores University. The project was led by Alasdair Allan and Tim Naylor at the University of Exeter, and Iain Steele at Liverpool John Moores University. The eSTAR Project was affiliated with the RoboNet Consortium, and the global Heterogeneous Telescope Networks Consortium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ASCOM (standard)</span>

ASCOM is an open initiative to provide a standard interface to a range of astronomy equipment including mounts, focusers and imaging devices in a Microsoft Windows environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vera C. Rubin Observatory</span> Astronomical observatory in Chile

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, formerly known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), is an astronomical observatory under construction in Chile. Its main task will be carrying out a synoptic astronomical survey, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. The word "synoptic" is derived from the Greek words σύν and ὄψις, and describes observations that give a broad view of a subject at a particular time. The observatory is located on the El Peñón peak of Cerro Pachón, a 2,682-meter-high mountain in Coquimbo Region, in northern Chile, alongside the existing Gemini South and Southern Astrophysical Research Telescopes. The LSST Base Facility is located about 100 kilometres (62 mi) away from the observatory by road, in the town of La Serena. The observatory is named for Vera Rubin, an American astronomer who pioneered discoveries about galaxy rotation rates.

The Space Telescope Science Data Analysis System (STSDAS) is an IRAF-based suite of astronomical software for reducing and analyzing astronomical data. It contains general purpose tools and packages for processing data from the Hubble Space Telescope. STSDAS is produced by Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). The STSDAS software is generally in the public domain, however some routines were taken from the Numerical Recipes and other books and cannot freely distributed.

The UK Astronomy Technology Centre is based at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

Astronomical Image Processing System++ is a software package whose development was started in the early nineties, written almost entirely in C++, and which initial goal was to replace the by then already aging AIPS software. It has now been reborn as CASA and is the basis of the image processing systems for several next-generation radio telescopes including ALMA, eVLA, and ASKAP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astronomical Image Processing System</span>

The Astronomical Image Processing System (AIPS) is a software package to support the reduction and analysis of data taken with radio telescopes. Developed predominantly for use with the then under-construction VLA, the generality inherent in its design allowed it to become the standard data-reduction package for most radio interferometers, including VLBI. Limited single-dish capability is also featured. Although partially replaced by CASA, it continues to evolve and remains in use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WorldWide Telescope</span> Set of open-source services

WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is an open-source set of applications, data and cloud services, originally created by Microsoft Research but now an open source project hosted on GitHub. The .NET Foundation holds the copyright and the project is managed by the American Astronomical Society and has been supported by grants from the Moore Foundation and National Science Foundation. WWT displays astronomical, earth and planetary data allowing visual navigation through the 3-dimensional (3D) Universe. Users are able to navigate the sky by panning and zooming, or explore the 3D universe from the surface of Earth to past the Cosmic microwave background (CMB), viewing both visual imagery and scientific data about that area and the objects in it. Data is curated from hundreds of different data sources, but its open data nature allows users to explore any third party data that conforms to a WWT supported format. With the rich source of multi-spectral all-sky images it is possible to view the sky in many wavelengths of light. The software utilizes Microsoft's Visual Experience Engine technologies to function. WWT can also be used to visualize arbitrary or abstract data sets and time series data.

The Palomar Transient Factory, was an astronomical survey using a wide-field survey camera designed to search for optical transient and variable sources such as variable stars, supernovae, asteroids and comets. The project completed commissioning in summer 2009, and continued until December 2012. It has since been succeeded by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF), which itself transitioned to the Zwicky Transient Facility in 2017/18. All three surveys are registered at the MPC under the same observatory code for their astrometric observations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TOPCAT (software)</span> Graphical viewer of tabular data mainly used in astronomical applications

TOPCAT is an interactive graphical viewer and editor for tabular data. Although a general purpose tool capable of handling large and sparse datasets with correlation functionality its specialist application area is astronomy and it was initially designed to support virtual observatories. It is able to handle several digital file formats including FITS which is in common use in astronomy. The Acronym TOPCAT derives from Tool for OPerations on Catalogues And Tables.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astropy</span> Python language software

Astropy is a collection of software packages written in the Python programming language and designed for use in astronomy. The software is a single, free, core package for astronomical utilities due to the increasingly widespread usage of Python by astronomers, and to foster interoperability between various extant Python astronomy packages. Astropy is included in several large Python distributions; it is part of package managers for Linux and macOS, the Anaconda Python Distribution, Enthought Canopy and Ureka.

References

  1. ↑ "StarlinkLicence - Starlink". Starlink.jach.hawaii.edu. 2009-02-01. Archived from the original on 2012-01-23. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
  2. ↑ Disney, M. J.; Wallace, P. T. (1982). "Starlink". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 23: 485. Bibcode:1982QJRAS..23..485D.
  3. ↑ Starlink developers' pages
  4. ↑ Various (2011). "Starlink: Multi-purpose Astronomy Software". Astrophysics Source Code Library: ascl:1110.012. Bibcode:2011ascl.soft10012V.
  5. 1 2 "Starlnk software releases". starlink.eao.hawaii.edu. East Asian Observatory. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.