New releases of TOPCAT and STILTS have been released:

TOPCAT v3.6
STILTS v2.2

You can find downloads and additional information at the usual places:

http://www.starlink.ac.uk/topcat/
http://www.starlink.ac.uk/stilts/

Significant upgrades are:

Session and Multi-Table save/load (TOPCAT):
From the Save Window, as well as the old behaviour of saving the
current table to a file, you now have two new options:
Save multiple tables to a single container file, or save the
TOPCAT session to a single container file.  These are similar,
but in the latter case subsets, hidden columns, sort orders etc
are saved as well as the table data itself.  When a file saved
in this way is loaded, all the tables will be loaded in.

Multi-table copy (STILTS):
There are new STILTS commands tmulti and tmultin which can copy
multiple input files to a single container output file
(typically multi-extension FITS or multi-TABLE VOTable).

System Browser (TOPCAT):
The TOPCAT load and save windows now have a new button “System Browser”
which can be used as an alternative to the old Filestore Browser
button.  It lets you use your platform’s native OS file browser,
which may give Mac and Windows users a more familiar and convenient
experience.

Rename/Delete Row Subsets (TOPCAT):
At long last, the Subset Window provides options for deleting and
renaming subsets.  Apologies to those who’ve been asking that this
has taken so long to implement.

JSAMP upgrade:
The JSAMP library used is now v1.1; amongst other things it means
that if you’re using Java 1.6 on a suitable desktop, a SAMP Hub
started from TOPCAT will show up as an icon in the “System Tray”.

There are a number of other minor enhancements and bugfixes as well.
For details see the respective version histories:

http://www.starlink.ac.uk/topcat/sun253/versions.html
http://www.starlink.ac.uk/stilts/sun256/versions.html

Finally, from this version, TOPCAT and STILTS require version 1.5 of the
Java Runtime Environment to run.

The May 2010 issue of the IVOA Newsletter is now available at http://ivoa.net/newsletter/. This biannual newsletter for astronomers is intended to highlight new capabilities of VO tools and technologies for doing astronomy research. It also lists recent papers, and upcoming events. Comments and feedback are encouraged; you may contact the editors at ivoa-news-editors at ivoa.net.

The November 2009 issue of the IVOA Newsletter is now available at
http://ivoa.net/newsletter/. This biannual newsletter for astronomers is intended to highlight new capabilities of VO tools and technologies for doing astronomy research. It also lists recent papers, and upcoming events. Comments and feedback are encouraged; you may contact the editors at ivoa-news-editors@ivoa.net.

What's new in Aladin v6: click to enlarge

The Centre de Données Astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) ispleased to announce Aladin release 6:

http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/

Aladin is an interactive software sky atlas allowing the user to visualize digitized astronomical images, superimpose entries from astronomical catalogues or databases, and interactively access related data and information from the Simbad database, the VizieR service and other archives for all known sources in the field. The new release integrates the following new developments:

• Undergraduate mode: Aladin simplified interface for undergraduate purposes
• SAMP compatibility: Support for the new PLASTIC standard called SAMP allowing interoperability between several VO applications
• Calibrated JPEG: AVM and FITS keywords support in JPEG images for reading and writting astrometrical calibrated colored images
• Dynamical histogram: Interactive histogram for browsing current measurements
• Photometry tools: tools for simple photometry measurements (by circles or polygons)
• Simbad fast access: fast Simbad access allowing very large queries
• VizieR whole catalog: new checkbox in the VizieR forms for downloading whole catalogs
• Full screen: Full screen support and preview window support
• RGB, Blink and pixel computations: supported for non-calibrated images
• Undo position list:for going back to the previous locations
• FITS Rice: Support for FITS RICE compression
• “get” script: get script improvements allowing not positional parameters and SIA/SSA filtering
• FoV rotation: FOV rotation center control
• Translation: Italian (G.Iafrate), German (F.Freistetter), Persian (A.Sedaghatkish)

Dear all.

The PANDORA (“Programs for AstroNomical Data Organization Reduction and Analysis”) group at the Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica in Milano, Italy, is pleased to announce the release of SAMPy 1.11.1 available at the PANDORA group site. SAMPy is a Python implementation of the Simple Application Messaging Protocol.

This new release includes the following changes:

• Public ID format still simplified
• New Hub metadata added
• XML-RPC faultCode value set to be int (Douglas Burke patch)
• samp.app.ping and client.env.get MTypes supported by default
• SAMPHubProxy.declareSubscriptions “mtypes” parameter renamed as
• “subscriptions”
• bindReceiveNotification and bindReceiveCall methods of SAMPClient and
• SAMPIntegratedClient classes have been changed adding an optional
• metadata” parameter
• declareSubscriptions method of SAMPClient and SAMPIntegratedClient
• changed adding an optional “subscriptions” parameter
• Interrupted system calls error caught
• Other small bugs fixed
• README updated

If you have any comment, bug notification, help request, etc. please contact the team by using the PANDORA site contact page.

The ESA-VO Team is pleased to announce the release of VOSpec 5.5 available at:

• Applet version
• Webstart version

VOSpec is a tool able to handle Spectra in the VO context as well as providing analysis capabilities and easy integration of spectra coming from different data providers, wavelengths, and different metadata (e.g. units). This new release includes the following mayor features and improvements from V5.1:

• SAMP Integration - http://esavo.esac.esa.int/VOSpecManual/interoperability.html
• Best Fit Algorithm -   http://esavo.esac.esa.int/VOSpecManual/fitting.html
• Support to 1-D fits spectrum image - http://esavo.esac.esa.int/VOSpecManual/gui.html#open
• Update of the local file parsers, with use of the NVO SED library kindly provided and supported by the NVO Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophisics -http://vo.cfa.harvard.edu/soft/)

Furthermore, improvements from version 4 include:

• Registry interface update to rec 1.01 - New Euro-VO and NVO registries usage
• SSA interface updated to REC 1.04
• NVO SED library inclusion for SDM 1.0+ compatible spectra
• Dual spectra selector
  Reconfigurable tree
  Sortable table
• Local Registry
• Distance metadata calculation

For further information (manual, versioning info, other access interfaces) please check the VOSpec webpage.

The AstroGrid project is pleased to announce the latest release of the AstroGrid VODesktop, version 1.2.3.1. This is a suite of desktop applications to enable astronomers to explore and bookmark resources from around the world, find data, store and share files in VOSpace, query databases, plot and manipulate tables, cross-match catalogs, and build and run scripts to automate sequences of tasks. Tools from other IVOA projects inter-operate with AstroGrid software, so you can also view and analyze images and spectra located in the VO.

The latest version includes new features and improvements, including improved descriptive information (metadata) for searching and filtering resources, and a new Multi-Query capability for searching resources against a user-supplied list of positions, as well as for just one position at a time. There are also a number of bug fixes and internal technical improvements. AstroGrid Python remains at V1.04. The latest version of Topcat is V3.4-1, March 2009. Important changes are listed at http://www.astrogrid.org/wiki/ReleaseNotes .

VisIVO ON-LINE TUTORIAL
25 June 2009 - 3:00 pm (CET)

INAF-Astrophysical Observatory of Catania (Italy)
in collaboration with
Cineca  (Italy), University of Portsmouth (United Kingdom),
Cometa Consortium (Italy) and INFN (National Institute of Nuclear
Physics) Sezione di Catania (Italy)

VisIVO  is an integrated suite of tools and services specifically designed for the Virtual Observatory. This suite constitutes a software framework for effective visual discovery in currently available (and next-generation) very large-scale astrophysical datasets coming from real-world observations or numerical simulations. VisIVO consists of VisiVO Desktop - a standalone application for interactive visualization on standard PC platforms, VisIVO Server - a grid enabled platform for ultra high performance visualization and VisIVO Web - a custom designed web portal supporting services based on the VisIVO Server functionality.

This tutorial will provide hands-on training at introductory level using the core features of VisIVO Desktop, VisIVO Server and VisIVO Web for effective astronomical visualisation. There will be a single training session with planned duration of three hours.

The deadline for registering for this event is Saturday 20 June 2009. Participation in this tutorial is completely free, no fees are required. Accepted participants will receive all necessary information for connecting to the event’s www pages. The agenda and a web link for registration are available at http://visivo.oact.inaf.it, please follow the link entitled “Second VisIVO On Line Tutorial.”

There are many transient events in the night sky: supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, microlensing, to name a few, and presumably others as yet unknown. In each case, scientific knowledge is gained by immediate followup by powerful telescopes. When an exciting discovery happens, we want the information infrastructure in place already for automated followup by multiple telescopes, with coordination of results that prompts further followup. In this way, we can explore this rapid, transient sky.

VOEvent is a major part of that infrastructure, and it  has now reached the Recommendation status from the International Virtual Observatory Alliance, the highest level of standard. This means that many people have examined and approved the standard, and the specification and schema are now to be considered an international standard. code and networks that use VOEvent without fear of arbitrary changes.

With the advent of powerful survey projects to find transients (PannStarrs, LSST), the VOEvent infrastructure  has moved a step closer to becoming an effective, automated, global follow-up system.

A Mission and Roadmap Statement

In the past twelve months, four major international projects have been funded to develop and realize the vision of using astronomical data repositories as virtual observatories. The total investment of funds in these projects is more than $24 million (US) over the next three-five years. The scope of these efforts is not limited to national boundaries but rather extends over the range of space and ground facilities utilized by the international astronomical community. The number of VO projects continues to increase as more and more communities of astronomers realize the challenge and opportunity before them. Each project shares common needs and seeks access to common ground. There is, therefore, a need to define this common ground and find ways of meeting the needs as an international astronomical community seeking to realize a VO with global capabilities.

The mission of the IVOA is to facilitate the international coordination and collaboration necessary for the development and deployment of all tools, systems and organizational structures necessary to enable the international utilization of astronomical archives as an integrated and interoperating virtual observatory.

The ASTROGRID, AVO, NVO, and CVO projects formally announced the IVOA at the Munich VO meeting, and would like to extend an invitation to all VO projects to join this alliance for the pursuit of an international virtual observatory and the expansion of astronomical research capabilities in the 21st century.

Further information available in the complete document (MSWord) and at the IVOA website.