Report of the SRS committee on the compilation of the SRS catalog

The status of the collaboration between the Pulkovo Observatory and the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) on the compilation of the Southern Reference Star (SRS) catalog is described. Results of comparisons between the data bases and the preliminary compiled SRS catalogs of the two observatories are discussed. Characteristics of the jointly compiled catalog are given.     

Planet crossing asteroids and parallel computing: Project spaceguard

The orbits of the asteroids crossing the orbit of the Earth and other planets are chaotic and cannot be computed in a deterministic way for a time span long enough to study the probability of collisions. It is possible to study the statistical behaviour of a large number of such orbits over a long span of time, provided enough computing resources and intelligent post processing software are available. The former, problem can be handled by exploiting the enormous power of parallel computing systems. The orbit of the asteroids can be studied as a restricted (N+M)-body problem which is suitable for the use of parallel processing, by using one processor to compute the orbits of the planets and the others to compute the orbits the asteroids. This scheme has been implemented on LCAP-2, an array of IBM and FPS processors with shared memory designed by E. Clementi (IBM). The parallelisation efficiency has been over 80%, and the overall speed over 90 MegaFLOPS; the orbits of all the asteroids with perihelia lower than the aphelion of Mars (410 objects) have been computed for 200,000, years (Project SPACEGUARD). The most difficult step of the project is the post processing of the very large amount of output data and to gather qualitative information on the behaviour of so many orbits without resorting to the traditional technique, i.e. human examination of output in graphical form. Within Project SPACEGUARD we have developed a qualitative classification of the orbits of the planet crossers. To develop an entirely automated classification of the qualitative orbital behaviour-including crossing behaviour, resonances (mean motion and secular), and protection mechanisms avoiding collisions-is a challenge to be met.     

GPU accelerated radio astronomy signal convolution

The increasing array size of radio astronomy interferometers is causing the associated computation to scale quadratically with the number of array signals. Consequently, efficient usage of alternate processing architectures should be explored in order to meet this computational challenge. Affordable parallel processors have been made available to the general scientific community in the form of the commodity graphics card. This work investigates the use of the Graphics Processing Unit in the parallelisation of the combined conjugate multiply and accumulation stage of a correlator for a radio astronomy array. Using NVIDIA’s Compute Unified Device Architecture, our testing shows processing speeds from one to two orders of magnitude faster than a Central Processing Unit approach.     

The asteroid ephemerides program at the U.S. Naval Observatory

The U.S. Naval Observatory has begun a program of ephemeris improvement and reference frame determination from the main belt asteroids. The program is, currently, starting out with a limited set of observations of the larger asteroids to determine the equator and equinox corrections for the USNO W1J00 transit circle observations catalog, and, if possible, improve the orbits of these asteroids based on this limited set of observations. For this project, transit circle observations of the Sun and the planets Mercury through Jupiter, are also being used to determine the equator, equinox, and ephemeris corrections, the next goal is to improve the orbits of the larger asteroids in the optical reference frame using observation series that cover a much longer period of time. This will allow the exploration of the differences between the dynamical reference frame based on radar observations of main belt asteroids and its relation with the optical reference frame. Other goals include the exploration of the mass distribution in the main asteroid belt from high precision observations, and the effect of this mass on the ephemerides of the major planets.     

A parallel TreeSPH code for galaxy formation

We describe a new implementation of a parallel TreeSPH code with the aim of simulating galaxy formation and evolution. The code has been parallelized using shmem , a Cray proprietary library to handle communications between the 256 processors of the Silicon Graphics T3E massively parallel supercomputer hosted by the Cineca Super-computing Center (Bologna, Italy). ¹
The code combines the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method for solving hydrodynamical equations with the popular Barnes & Hut tree-code to perform gravity calculation with an N ×log  N scaling, and it is based on the scalar TreeSPH code developed by Carraro et al. Parallelization is achieved by distributing particles along processors according to a workload criterion.
Benchmarks, in terms of load balance and scalability, of the code are analysed and critically discussed against the adiabatic collapse of an isothermal gas sphere test using 2×10⁴ particles on 8 processors. The code results balance at more than the 95 per cent level. Increasing the number of processors, the load balance slightly worsens. The deviation from perfect scalability for increasing number of processors is almost negligible up to 32 processors. Finally, we present a simulation of the formation of an X-ray galaxy cluster in a flat cold dark matter cosmology, using 2×10⁵ particles and 32 processors, and compare our results with Evrard's P³M–SPH simulations.
Additionally we have incorporated radiative cooling, star formation, feedback from SNe of types II and Ia, stellar winds and UV flux from massive stars, and an algorithm to follow the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium. Simulations with some of these ingredients are also presented.     

Using Java for distributed computing in the Gaia satellite data processing

In recent years Java has matured to a stable easy-to-use language with the flexibility of an interpreter (for reflection etc.) but the performance and type checking of a compiled language. When we started using Java for astronomical applications around 1999 they were the first of their kind in astronomy. Now a great deal of astronomy software is written in Java as are many business applications. We discuss the current environment and trends concerning the language and present an actual example of scientific use of Java for high-performance distributed computing: ESA’s mission Gaia. The Gaia scanning satellite will perform a galactic census of about 1,000 million objects in our galaxy. The Gaia community has chosen to write its processing software in Java. We explore the manifold reasons for choosing Java for this large science collaboration. Gaia processing is numerically complex but highly distributable, some parts being embarrassingly parallel. We describe the Gaia processing architecture and its realisation in Java. We delve into the astrometric solution which is the most advanced and most complex part of the processing. The Gaia simulator is also written in Java and is the most mature code in the system. This has been successfully running since about 2005 on the supercomputer “Marenostrum” in Barcelona. We relate experiences of using Java on a large shared machine. Finally we discuss Java, including some of its problems, for scientific computing.     

水（金）星凌日的程序化预报方法

本文介绍了预报水(金)星凌日的计算方法和凌日图的绘制方法,建立了一套完整的预报程序。作为该程序的一个简单应用,我们结合DE200历表及美国海军天文台提供的岁差章动程序,给出了1999年水星凌日的预报结果。     

Teraflop per second gravitational lensing ray-shooting using graphics processing units

Gravitational lensing calculation using a direct inverse ray-shooting approach is a computationally expensive way to determine magnification maps, caustic patterns, and light-curves (e.g. as a function of source profile and size). However, as an easily parallelisable calculation, gravitational ray-shooting can be accelerated using programmable graphics processing units (GPUs). We present our implementation of inverse ray-shooting for the NVIDIA G80 generation of graphics processors using the NVIDIA Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) software development kit. We also extend our code to multiple GPU systems, including a 4-GPU NVIDIA S1070 Tesla unit. We achieve sustained processing performance of 182 Gflop/s on a single GPU, and 1.28 Tflop/s using the Tesla unit. We demonstrate that billion-lens microlensing simulations can be run on a single computer with a Tesla unit in timescales of order a day without the use of a hierarchical tree-code.     

Cots Correlator Platform

Moore’s law is best exploited by using consumer market hardware. In particular, the gaming industry pushes the limit of processor performance thus reducing the cost per raw flop even faster than Moore’s law predicts. Next to the cost benefits of Common-Of-The-Shelf (COTS) processing resources, there is a rapidly growing experience pool in cluster based processing. The typical Beowulf cluster of PC’s supercomputers are well known. Multiple examples exists of specialised cluster computers based on more advanced server nodes or even gaming stations. All these cluster machines build upon the same knowledge about cluster software management, scheduling, middleware libraries and mathematical libraries. In this study, we have integrated COTS processing resources and cluster nodes into a very high performance processing platform suitable for streaming data applications, in particular to implement a correlator. The required processing power for the correlator in modern radio telescopes is in the range of the larger supercomputers, which motivates the usage of supercomputer technology. Raw processing power is provided by graphical processors and is combined with an Infiniband host bus adapter with integrated data stream handling logic. With this processing platform a scalable correlator can be built with continuously growing processing power at consumer market prices.     

Parallel Tree–SPH: A Tool for Galaxy Formation

We describe a new implementation of a parallel Tree-SPH code with the aim of simulating galaxy formation and evolution. The code has been parallelized using SHMEM, a Cray proprietary library to handle communications between the 256 processors of the Silicon Graphics T3E massively parallel supercomputer hosted by the Cineca Super-computing Center (Bologna, Italy). The code combines the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method to solve hydrodynamical equations with the popular Barnes and Hut (1986) tree-code to perform gravity calculation with a N × log N scaling, and it is based on the scalar Tree-SPH code developed by Carraro et al. (1998). Parallelization is achieved by distributing particles along processors according to a workload criterion. Benchmarks of the code, in terms of load balance and scalability, are analysed and critically discussed against the adiabatic collapse of an isothermal gas sphere test using 2 × 10⁴ particles on eight processors. The code turns out to be balanced at more than 95% level. If the number of processors is increased, the load balance worsens slightly. The deviation from perfect scalability at increasing number of processors is negligible up to 64 processors. Additionally we have incorporated radiative cooling, star formation, feedback and an algorithm to follow the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

First Optical Satellite Tracking Station (OSTS) at NRIAG-Egypt

In March 2019 the first dedicated of optical observation of space debris and artificial satellites (Optical Satellites Tracking Station (OSTS)) in Egypt has been performed by National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG) at Kottamia Observatory. The 0.28 m Telescope is used for tracking and surveying debris and operational satellites at Low Earth Orbit (LEO), High ellipse orbit (HEO) and the Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO). OSTS has also collaborated with International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) for optical observation. The necessary programs to control the telescope, camera and monitoring process are configured. Coordinate corrected metric data is provided with the time information. The system has validated and calibrated processing. The first results of the observations with image processing using Apex-2 software are presented. The optical observations using OSTS are being used to help characterize the debris environment in LEO, HEO and GEO to assist in the modeling projections for space debris database, real population and distribution, detection and orbital determination, and conjunction analysis between operational satellites and/or dangers debris.     

Real-time signal processor for pulsar studies

This paper describes the design, tests and preliminary results of a real-time parallel signal processor built to aid a wide variety of pulsar observations. The signal processor reduces the distortions caused by the effects of dispersion, Faraday rotation, doppler acceleration and parallactic angle variations, at a sustained data rate of 32 Msamples/sec. It also folds the pulses coherently over the period and integrates adjacent samples in time and frequency to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio. The resulting data are recorded for further off-line analysis of the characteristics of pulsars and the intervening medium. The signal processing for analysis of pulsar signals is quite complex, imposing the need for a high computational throughput, typically of the order of a Giga operations per second (GOPS). Conventionally, the high computational demand restricts the flexibility to handle only a few types of pulsar observations. This instrument is designed to handle a wide variety of Pulsar observations with the Giant Metre Wave Radio Telescope (GMRT), and is flexible enough to be used in many other high-speed, signal processing applications. The technology used includes field-programmable-gate-array(FPGA) based data/code routing interfaces, PC-AT based control, diagnostics and data acquisition, digital signal processor (DSP) chip based parallel processing nodes and C language based control software and DSP-assembly programs for signal processing. The architecture and the software implementation of the parallel processor are fine-tuned to realize about 60 MOPS per DSP node and a multiple-instruction-multiple-data (MIMD) capability.     

A real-time software backend for the GMRT

The new era of software signal processing has a large impact on radio astronomy instrumentation. Our design and implementation of a 32 antennae, 33 MHz, dual polarization, fully real-time software backend for the GMRT, using only off-the-shelf components, is an example of this. We have built a correlator and a beamformer, using PCI-based ADC cards and a Linux cluster of 48 nodes with dual gigabit inter-node connectivity for real-time data transfer requirements. The highly optimized compute pipeline uses cache efficient, multi-threaded parallel code, with the aid of vectorized processing. This backend allows flexibility in final time and frequency resolutions, and the ability to implement algorithms for radio frequency interference rejection. Our approach has allowed relatively rapid development of a fairly sophisticated and flexible backend receiver system for the GMRT, which will greatly enhance the productivity of the telescope. In this paper we describe some of the first lights using this software processing pipeline. We believe this is the first instance of such a real-time observatory backend for an intermediate sized array like the GMRT.     

微机数据流磁带机驱动接口和软件的研究

对于数据采集处理微机系统来说,采集预处理后的数据往往需要按预定的格式转换,再到功能更强的计算机上作进一步的处理,因此可装卸的大容量外存设备就显得日益重要。然而装备在PC机上的这类设备相应的驱动软件只支持固定的磁带文件格式,加之软硬件资料的缺乏,给这类设备的信息交换和高效使用带来了困难。本文针对微机上广泛使用的数据流磁带机,在硬件接口分析的基础上,全面描述我们新近开发的驱动软件包里的基本I/O过程,用户软件可方便地调用以实现对任意数据格式磁带进行读写。     

Photographic observations of Saturn’s moons at the MAO NAS of Ukraine in 1961–1990

A catalog of 1385 astrometric positions of Saturn’s moons S2–S9 has been compiled with Tycho-2 as a reference frame from photographic observations obtained at the Main Astronomical Observatory, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, in 1961–1990. Astronegatives have been digitized with an Epson Expression 10000XL commercial scanner in 16-bit grayscale with a resolution of 1200 dpi. Reduction has been performed in the LINUX-MIDAS-ROMAFOT software supplemented with additional modules. The internal positional accuracy of the reduction is 0.09…0.23′′ for both coordinates and 0.27…0.37^m for the photographic magnitudes of the Tycho-2 catalog. The calculated topocentric positions of the moons are compared online with the IMCCE ephemeris data (DE405 + TASS1,7). Moon-minus-moon differential coordinates are found for most of the moons and compared with theoretical data (http://lnfm1.sai.msu.ru/neb/nss/nssephmr.htm).     

基于JDBC的通用数据库访问和星表录入工具

LAMOST(Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopy Telescope)的巡天战略系统的主要功能是安排观测计划,而规划巡天星表是开展所有工作的初始步骤。天文研究人员或者巡天观测人员需要从各种类型的数据库进行选星、提取和录入。使用JDBC(JavaDatabase Connectivity)数据库访问技术,利用面向对象的编程思想,实现了一个能访问多种类型数据库、获取星表数据、数据格式转换和星表录入的工具,支持大数据量处理,为天文研究人员以及巡天观测管理人员提供帮助。     

Milgromian dynamics and dwarf galaxies in galactic voids

We use kinematic data of 103 dwarf galaxies, obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey catalog, to test the Milgromian dynamics (MOND) inside a galactic void. From this data, we compute the line-of-sight velocity dispersions of the dwarf galaxies in the frameworks of MOND and Newtonian dynamics without invoking any dark matter. The prediction for the line-of-sight velocity dispersions from MOND of 53 selected dwarf galaxies is compared with their measured values. For appropriate mass-to-light ratios in the range 1 to 5 for each individual dwarf galaxy, our results for the line-of-sight velocity dispersions predicted by MOND are more compatible with observations than those predicted by Newtonian dynamics.     

VLBI相位校正信号提取的软件实现方法

从VLBI相关处理结果中提取的延迟值包括了天线、终端等设备的时延,必须对其加以修正,最终结果才能达到精度要求。提取相位校正信号,可以消除这些设备引入的时延,从而校正同一波前信号到达基线两端的几何时延。该文介绍了提取相位校正信号的原理、算法及软件实现方法。软件采用多线程和SSE技术,具备4台站多通道全部相位校正信号提取能力。     

The absolute spectrophotometric catalog by Anita Cochran

The absolute spectrophotometric catalog by Anita Cochran is presented in a machine-readable form. The catalog systematizes observations acquired at the McDonald Observatory in 1977–1978. The data are compared with other sources, in particular, the calculated broadband stellar magnitudes are compared with photometric observations by other authors, to show that the observational data given in the catalog are reliable and suitable for a variety of applications. Observations of variable stars of different types make Cochran’s catalog especially valuable.     

Verbesserung der Sternörter des Potsdamer PZT-Katalogs (Mitteilungen des Zentralinstituts für Physik der Erde Nr. 1220)

Corrections of right-ascensions and declinations for the Potsdam PZT catalog were calculated using the results of time and latitude determinations with the PZT in the years 1972–78. The corrected star places form the new PZT catalog, which is given in the appendix. The comparison with the former catalog PZT 74 shows an improvement of the quality for the new catalog. Furthermore the systematic deviations in regard of the Northern PZT Star Catalog NPZT 74 are smaller than those of the old catalog, especially for the declinations.