Links from my "astronomy data talk"

From May 2021 -- Data Umbrella talk: the slides.

From March 2018 -- a version of the talk aimed at amateur astronomers: slides (pdf) and screencapture movie.

Citizen Science opportunities

Web-based projects

Originally grabbed from here, which has a much better (if possibly dated) list, with a description for each project.

These programs all involve the use of real data on the forefront of astronomical research, but are "packaged" so as to make accessing the real data far more easy (e.g., entirely web browser-based) than it might be otherwise. These projects are a great way to start to get into real data. Many offer "hooks" to get into the research questions at a deeper level when you are ready. Many have lesson plans ready-to-go -- by which I mean, lessons you can do yourself, or if you are an educator, you can use in a classroom or after school setting. Some may have shut down while others have started.

Zooniverse has a TON -- go to the list of all Zooniverse projects, and scroll through the list to find the astronomy ones.
SETI at home
International Observer the Moon Night
Globe at Night. NB: data will also be used for evaluating effects on wildlife; activities to come.
Great World-Wide Star Count
Solar Stormwatch
Stardust at Home
Citizen Sky
Cosmo Quest
Some citizen science programs are available at the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute - see links on that page.

Even Bigger Projects

Things that need more of a time commitment, e.g., your own observatory (not a 3-inch Walmart telescope, but not a 3.5 meter either):

Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers
American Association of Variable Star Observers
Global Telescope Network (GTN) - following up objects (initially detected at Gamma Ray and X-ray bands) from the ground.
Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory
BAA Jupiter Section
Radio Jove

Astronomical imaging

Major US Astronomy Archives

IRSA, the Infrared Science Archive (this is the one at Caltech) - NASA's IR and sub-mm data.
NED, the NASA Extragalactic Database (also at Caltech) - curated data about galaxies ("google for galaxies")
The NASA Exoplanet Archive (also at Caltech) - curated data about exoplanets
MAST, the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (at STScI in Baltimore) - NASA's optical data
HEASARC, the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (at Goddard in Greenbelt, MD) - NASA's high-energy data
ADS, the Astrophysics Data System (at Harvard) - all the astronomy literature from the 1800s through this morning.

There are other archives for planetary data (there are several); and archives housing data from Canada, Europe, India, and Asia assets ... Two of the most famous archives are based in France: SIMBAD and VizieR. SIMBAD is mostly object-driven, e.g., type in an object's name or RA/Dec and find out what is known about that object, with links to journal articles. VizieR gives you fast access to ~16,000 different published data tables.

Some IRSA tools

Finder Chart - this is the one that I showed, with data from the optical through the IR.
IRSA Viewer - generic tool to access lots of data.
Time Series Tool
Guide to program-friendly IRSA tools.
Firefly at GitHub
IRSA YouTube Feed with lots of tutorial videos on IRSA tools
Video on "Dustier, messier" Messier marathon (do a Messier Marathon in infrared!)
Recording of AAS workshop on "Using Python to Access NASA's Astrophysics Archives" from the Jan 2021 AAS meeting - PyVO introduction, with pointers to tutorial materials.

Also see Astrometry.net -- this is what you can use to attach coordinates to any image you yourself have taken that has enough stars in it.

Planetary data

Learning astronomy

Finally...

Are you a classroom high school educator who wants to do real research? Check out NITARP -- applications available annually in May or June for the class operating the following calendar year.

go back to my home page

Last substantially modified May 2021 by rebull
Any opinions expressed here are well-reasoned and insightful, but in no way reflect those of NASA, JPL, Caltech, or IPAC. No electrons were harmed in the creation of these pages.