Why distribute your data through VizieR?

Last updated on 2023-09-14 | Edit this page

Estimated time: 2 minutes

Overview

Questions

  • What is VizieR?
  • What is a VizieR catalogue?
  • How is VizieR interoperable?

Objectives

  • Describe the contents of a VizieR catalogue
  • List some VO tools interoperable with VizieR catalogues
  • Outline the benefits of submitting your data to VizieR

What is VizieR?


VizieR provides the most complete library of published astronomical catalogues - tables and associated data - with verified and enriched data, accessible via multiple interfaces. Query tools allow the user to select relevant data tables and to extract and format records matching given criteria. Currently, ~ 24 000 catalogues are available (as in August 2023).

Interactive window: VizieR homepage webpage. Note that you can type in (it is not an image).

VizieR was initially started as a joint effort of CDS (Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg) and ESA-ESRIN (Information Systems Division), and is now fully managed by CDS. VizieR has been available since 1996, and was described in a paper published in 2000 (DOI: 10.1051/aas:2000169).

Note that VizieR does not contain all available online catalogues: some catalogues are not suitable and some less frequently used catalogues have not yet been incorporated into the VizieR database. The full list of catalogues is available from there: Catalogue collection page.

Screenshot: VizieR Catalogue collection page, example for 'mission:gaia', from July 2023
Figure: VizieR Catalogue collection page - example when selecting Gaia mission catalogues (screenshot)

VizieR and more generally speaking the CDS are quite involved in the data preservation aspect, as evidenced by the DSA and CTS certifications awarded over the last years. More details on the topic can be found at the page below.

Interactive window: CDS webpage related to the CoreTrustSeal certification.

What is a VizieR catalogue?


We call a VizieR catalogue:

  • A set of documented tables (including a ReadMe file), linked to a published paper
  • With an indexation by keywords, authors, date, UCDs …
  • With a global indexation by position whenever possible
  • And citation capability (bibcode or DOI)

A catalogue can optionally contains other data types, also associated with publications. Here is a non exhaustive list:

Interactive window: VizieR catalogue landing page, example for Gaia DR3 Part 1 (VizieR name: I/355).

VizieR catalogue and CDS tools


Once a catalogue is ingested in VizieR, one can access a range of tools:

Figure: VizieR and the interoperability with the CDS services. The full list of services is described just above.
Figure: VizieR catalogues accessible through CDS services

Why distribute your data through VizieR?


In addition to the interoperability with the VO tools mentioned above, distributing your data through VizieR means adding values to them.

Summary: Benefits of using VizieR


Key Points

Distribute your data in a trusted repository in accordance with Open Data principles

  • Data preservation: The CDS has been awarded the Core Trust Seal.
  • Discovery: Take advantage of the VizieR services allowing for the discovery, and a good data visibility
    • Dedicated indexations
    • Quality and a good data description
    • Generate persistent identifier (bibcode, DOI) for citation
    • Data are available through the Virtual Observatory (VO) services
    • Data can be queried by various means (simple search, TAP, Python …) and retrieved in different format (ASCII, Fits, VOTable …)

Next chapters


In the next chapters, you will learn what type of data can be submitted, how to prepare and submit them to VizieR, and finally how to search your data using the EOSC tools.