Virtual Observatory Web Services
A requirement for the VMO to participate in the global Virtual Observatory (VO) is to implement XML Web services that are compliant with the specifications of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA), such as the VOTable XML format to exchange tabular data. As a first step to reach this requirement, the VMO implements a set of simple VO services, which can be accessed both as Web services or using query forms.
Dataset Index Service
The vmo-index web service allows one to retrieve a list of data available in the VMO for given meteor showers at given times. This way, it is easy to find out which data is available to study a certain meteor shower or time interval.
The service should be accessed using the HTTP GET-protocol, by calling the page http://vmo.imo.net/vo/vmo-index with the parameters given in the table below. This URL will return an XML-formatted list of VMO data in the VOTable format.
| Parameter | Default | Description | Example value |
|---|---|---|---|
| TIME | Timestamp around which to look for datasets. Given in Universal Time using the ISO format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MI:SS. This parameter is required. | 2009-01-01T12:00:00 | |
| RANGE | 1 day | Size of the interval in which to search, given in days. A search will be made in the interval [TIME-RANGE, TIME+RANGE]. | 1 |
| SHOWER | * | Comma-separated list of IAU meteor shower codes for which data should be provided by the datasets. Data on any shower will be returned if this parameter is omitted. | PER,GEM,LEO |
| SECTION | * | Comma-separated list of VMO sections to search (CAM = Camera, VIS = Visual, ORB = Orbits). All sections will be searched if this parameter is omitted. | CAM,VIS |
For example, to retrieve a list of datasets for the Geminids in December 2006, one should access:
http://vmo.imo.net/vo/vmo-index?TIME=2006-12-15T00:00:00&RANGE=15&SHOWER=GEM
Simple Image Access Service
A service to retrieve wide-field images of the sky for a given time or meteor is under construction. This service will use an extended version of the existing IVOA Simple Image Access (SIA) protocol.
SQL Query Access
It is possible to access the VMO database using SQL queries; please contact Geert Barentsen for details.
