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A Hitchhiker's Guide through the Gaia Galaxy

With the upcoming first Gaia data release 1 in late summer, a new age of Astronomy is at the horizon. The data release will contain astrometric data for more than 1 billion objects. Therefore, the access to these data will become a challenge due to the sheer amount.

In order to help you mastering this challenge, GAVO and the Gaia group at ARI offer a two-day Workshop on April 4-5, 2016 (Monday and Tuesday) at the ARI Seminarroom.

The workshop is addressed to local astronomers in Heidelberg (ZAH and MPIA) and will provide a basic insight into the Gaia DR1 and different ways to efficiently access the Gaia data. There will also be time to discuss your science cases and how your science can benefit from the services provided by GAVO and the Gaia group.

This workshop will cover the following aspects:

  • What can be expected from the Gaia DR1?
  • Where do you need to be careful interpreting these data?
  • Navigation through and access to the data using VO tools, especially ADQL.

Please install the software we will use in the course in advance. All of these tools require Java to be installed on your machine. If you have problems during installation, don't hesitate to contact us.

As prerequisites you will need:

Preliminary programme:

April 4th

10:00 Welcome
10:10 Stefan Jordan (ARI): "Gaia: Mission, status, Data Release 1"
10:35 Daniel Michalik (Lund University): "The TGAS Catalog"

11:00 Ulrich Bastian (ARI): "Usage of astrometric data: Warnings and caveats"

12:00 Lunch

13:00 Introduction to ADQL

14:30 Coffee break
14:45 ADQL Gaia exercises

Second part of the hands on course

16:15 Break
16:30 ADQL Slam

Test us: drop a science case, we slam an ADQL solution

17:15 End of Day 1

April 5th

10:15 Comprehensive Use Cases

Hands on tutorials with scientific use cases using ADQL


12:00 Lunch

13:00 Querying Gaia data with ADQL in scripts

14:30 Coffee break
14:45 Participants use cases

Time for your specific questions about the Gaia data and the techniques to access and process them.

16:15 Feedback and End

Please note that we have a limit of 30 participants and therefore kindly ask to register well ahead - the early bird catches the worm. You can register and send your use cases in advance to .

If you have any questions about the workshop please send them to Stefan Jordan (Gaia/ARI) and Hendrik Heinl (GAVO/ARI)