IAU WG: Int. Data Access - Discussion Docs.

Div II WG: International Data Access
(Solar & Heliospheric Data)

WG Discussion Documents

Below are documents that we should use as input to our discussion:

The EGSO project developed a "Unified Model for Solar Metadata" (Reardon et al.) that covers both solar and heliospheric data. [copy]
(Any comments or suggestions on the data model are welcome.)
The Space Physics Archive Search and Extract (SPASE) Group has produced a Data Dictionary that includes solar and magnetospheric terms. [copy]
SolarSoft - Keyword/Tag Definitions for FITS files containing solar data. [copy]
Naming Convention for Files (SOHO Team, with extensions by BBSO). [copy]

(Are there any other documents we should put forward for general discussion??)

Supporting Documents

There are a number of documents on standards that are relevant to these discussions (Please tell us of others that should be included):

Coordinate Standards

Coordinate Systems for Solar Image Data (PS file) [copy; PDF file]
Space Physics Coordinate Systems [copy]
Systems of Time [copy]
Summary of International Standard Date and Time Notation (ISO 8601) [copy]

File Metadata

The File Image Transfer System (FITS) standard was developed by the astrophysics community and is now used extensively throughout that community. There are many useful documents on the FITS Web Site; particularly relevant to our discussion are those related to the FITS World Coordinate System (WCS).

FITS has been used by the space-based solar community since the start of SOHO, perhaps a little longer by ground-based groups. It is essential that we include the metadata needed to support data analysis software - see SolarSoft document and discussions above.

In-situ data...

R.D. Bentley (UCL-MSSL)