2025-08-05 –, Kuiper Space Sciences Lecture Hall (308)
In the era of data-intensive research the astronomy community needs to acquire skills to handle increasingly larger and more complex datasets, and to gain access to high-performance computing and analysis tools. In this tutorial we will teach participants how to use data-proximate science platforms to conduct astronomy research. Using the Astro Data Lab science platform and the SPARCL (SPectra Analysis and Retrievable Catalog Lab) service for spectroscopy, participants will learn how to find documentation, information about all of Astro Data Lab's data holdings of over 100 TB of wide-field survey catalogs, 2.5 PB of imagery, and over 30 million spectra from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The event will feature the record-breaking optical spectroscopy dataset DESI DR1 released in March 2025. We will teach the group in an interactive mode how to use various data services and analysis tools at Astro Data Lab, including how to crossmatch tables, build and submit catalog queries, obtain image cutouts, search for and download spectra, and how to use the Astro Data Lab Jupyter notebook server. The participants will execute and modify science-case example notebooks from various domains of astronomy focusing on data analysis, with assistance available from Astro Data Lab and SPARCL personnel.
This session is open to all interested ADASSx attendees. Participants wishing to follow along interactively are invited to bring a laptop and create an Astro Data Lab user account at https://datalab.noirlab.edu/account/register/
Primary learning objectives:
● Construct SQL queries to query large datasets through a dedicated Jupyter Notebook
server, web-interface, and command-line interface
● Use Astro Data Lab’s X-match web service to crossmatch datasets
● Discover and query for SDSS and DESI spectra with SPARCL
● Create plots with the data obtained to realize the graphical and visualization capabilities
within our notebooks
Coarse tutorial structure:
1) Brief introductory presentation on astronomy science platforms showcasing SPARCL
and the Astro Data Lab science platform and how they can be utilized to explore,
discover, and analyze data easily and efficiently
2) Hands-on tutorial of using SPARCL and Astro Data Lab
a) Using our X-match web interface service to crossmatch with the new DESI DR1
dataset (including a provided test user table, or optionally users can bring their
own data table)
b) Hands-on exercises using available Jupyter notebooks as a starting point,
including: (i) Using SPARCL to retrieve spectra and Data Lab to retrieve images; (ii) Both static and interactive visualization of spectra and images; (iii) Example analysis from catalog data (varied topics)
3) Remaining time for Q&A, troubleshooting, discussion and/or feature requests, etc
Alice is a Data Analyst at NSF NOIRLab for the Astro Data Lab team. She is the lead analyst in charge of ingesting new datasets into Astro Data Lab and is also a co-developer of the spectroscopy tool SPARCL (SPectra Analysis and Retrievable Catalog Lab).
Dr. Juneau is an Associate Astronomer at NSF NOIRLab and the Project Scientist of the SPectra Analysis and Retrievable Catalog Lab (SPARCL). Based in Tucson, Arizona, she received a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Arizona and her scientific research focuses on galaxies and supermassive black holes. She is interested in applying novel analysis methods including machine learning, advanced visualization techniques, and in improving astrophysical science platforms. She is a member of the DESI collaboration and of JWST extragalactic survey teams.