VizieR catalogue upload (HELP)

• Data preservation : The CDS has been awarded the Core Trust Seal(CTS, https://www.coretrustseal.org/).
• Discovery: Take advantage of the VizieR services allowing for the discovery, and a good data visibility
  • VizieR data are available through the Virtual Observatory (VO)
    • load tables using TOPCAT or Aladin
    • access to spectra/images or time series
      • load spectra using CASSIS or Splat
      • load images in Aladin
  • Query tables using ADQL/SQL with TAPVizieR
  • The VizieR Photometry viewer is another output using tables for which filters are assigned to create SEDs
• Simbad : VizieR tables with astronomical objects can be processed in SIMBAD.
• CDS Cross-match: merge tables according to positions

Tables

Type of formats: machine-readable tables (MRT format), csv, tsv, aligned ASCII files or FITS files are welcome.

The new submit web application allows different formats for tables and helps you to ingest your data.

Here is a checklist of important information that should be associated with the table:

• An explanation is given for all the columns (at least a clear label; at best, few words of explanation)
• Units are given for all the columns (when relevant)
• For tables with sources, give coordinates as accurate as possible:
  • A bonus would be to have their uncertainty
  • Another bonus would be to have their wavelength
• As recommended by the IAU, a non-altered name is given for the sources (in addition to the coordinates)
• It is really much better to stick to the same object name from a table to another
• One column is homogeneous, i.e. does not mix different measurements having different units or errors with limit values or flags.
• If the measurements come from other papers, the references to those papers should be explicitly given using the bibcode.

If your tables are properly described, they will be available afterwards through the diverse accesses given by VizieR (see the previous section).

Following this checklist will help improving the efficiency of the ingestion in VizieR and also the visibility and reusability of your data :).

Associated data : images, time series, spectra

Reusable file formats for associated:

Product type	Accepted format
time series	ASCII, FITS
images	FITS
cube	FITS
spectra, sed	FITS, VOTable, ASCII

Note: Only FITS files will be indexed and accessible through the associated data service and through the Virtual Observatory

In order to index FITS formats as accurately as possible, several basic meta-data are needed, usually readily provided by the telescope software and data processing pipelines such as IRAF and MIDAS, as FITS header keywords.

As a good practice, any FITS header should provide:

• WCS projections for positions and spectral data
• standard FITS keywords described in the NASA FITS description.

For the sake of clarity and simplicity, we ask the authors, whenever possible, to stick to the "1 item = 1 file" rule, i.e. 1 star spectrum per file, for instance. In this simplest context, fits files should ideally also have only 1 hdu. An automatic, supervised detection of the meta-data is available in the new VizieR submit page. It resolves the most popular projections, data reduction software (IRAF, MIDAS) headers and recognizes FITS keywords given in the NASA FITS description.

A small checklist for providing correct headers:

• Positions
  • target name
  • coordinates: full WCS is recommended including the projection, the center ... (FITS cards: CRVAL, CDELT, CDi_j, CTYPE, CUNIT, CRPIX..)
• Wavelength(s) of observations
  • full WCS recommended including units (ex: IRAF WAT cards)
• Observation date
• Telescope : instrument and Facility

If your associated data are correctly described, then they will be provided through the vizier associated data web page and through the Virtual Observatory (CASSIS, Splat, Aladin).

Test your FITS spectra/images with the FITS validator which evaluates the compatibility between your FITS and the asked meta-data. This meta-data checking can be completed in the VizieR submission service.

• The new submission page : http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/vizier.submit/ - see also the documentation.
• The (old) submission page : http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Submit.
• FTP deposit or e-mail : see the Publication support page (http://cds.u-strasbg.fr/vizier/submit.htx#ToC4)

If you have questions or problems, please contact the VizieR staff.

Special case: large volumetry

The submission web application is an HTTP service and depends of authors network. The process is dedicated for tables size less than 100Mb but accepts tables until ~200Mb. For larger files, please contact the VizieR staff (cats@cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr).

More details are available at :

• Standard for Documentation of Astronomical Catalogues

Basic conventions :

• Structure of the ReadMe File
• Standard of Catalogues: Units
• Column name convention

Submit pages :

• The submitting page documentation
• (The old submitting page documentation)

CDS FITS validation:

• FITS validator service

Best Practices for Data Publication in the Astronomical Literature (T.Chen, 2022) :
The article is dedicated for authors, and is a basis of good practices expected in journals and data-centers.