Virtual Observatory for stellar astronomy

Abstract

The principal idea of the Virtual Observatory is to achieve real transparency for astronomical data, similar to transparency for all the world's documents in the World Wide Web. In the Virtual Observatory, all the world's astronomical data is available from one's desktop. All archives understand the same query language, can be accessed through a uniform interface, and diverse data can be analyzed with the same tools. In particular, facilities of the Virtual Observatory allow users to make a fast and correct analysis of objects from various surveys. It yields multi‐photometry data on registered objects and makes it possible to determine stellar parameters. Methods of astronomical data analysis as well as their application to various areas of stellar astronomy are discussed in this paper. (© 2013 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)