Analysis and Visualization of Multiwavelength Spectral Energy Distributions in the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED)
Abstract
The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED,http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/) currently contains over 4.5 million photometric measurements covering the electromagnetic spectrum from gamma rays through radio wavelengths for objects that are being cross-correlated among major sky surveys (e.g., SDSS, 2MASS, IRAS, NVSS, FIRST) and thousands of smaller, but unique and important, catalogs and journal articles. The ability to retrieve photometric data (including uncertainties, aperture information, and references) and display spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for individual objects has been available in NED for six years. In this paper we summarize recent enhancements that enable construction of large panchromatic data sets to facilitate multi-dimensional photometric analysis. The database can now be queried for samples of objects that meet flux constraints at any wavelength(e.g., objects with any available 20cm flux, or objects with fν10μm] > 5.0Jy). The ability to utilize criteria involving flux ratios (e.g., objects with fν[20cm]/fν[60μm] > 0.5) is under development. Such queries can be jointly combined with additional constraints on sky area, redshifts, object types, or sample membership, and the data are output with consistent physical units required for comparative analysis. Some results derived from fused photometric data in NED are presented to highlight the large number and diversity of available SEDs.
- Publication:
-
Astronomical Data Analysis II
- Pub Date:
- December 2002
- DOI:
- 10.1117/12.461048
- Bibcode:
- 2002SPIE.4847..254M