From the collection of proposals, telescope and instrument control, driving archives, and simulating and processing data, research software and data engineering underpins almost every process in the advancement of astronomy. And yet this has at times been an afterthought, receiving little attention or funding. Some institutes have always valued software engineering, and the community is slowly coming to realize that the discipline must be supported so that the best science can be carried out. We will discuss software engineering careers within astronomy, and the problems we must tackle if we wish to continue to attract excellent minds to our field from a diverse range of backgrounds. Not just attract but retain them, in an era where flexible working conditions are no longer a perk of academia, and salary disparity between our institutions and industry is larger than ever. We describe the AAO’s Research Data and Software section’s work to provide a stable career path for its engineers, and to attract a portfolio of work which both satisfies the requirements of the instrumentation and data projects, and the needs of our team to have a challenging, creative, and fulfilling work life.
Data Central is the AAO's flagship virtual observatory service, providing a central repository for Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) and UK Schmidt observations, survey-team derived data products and documentation. The system brings together catalogues, imaging, spectra and data cubes from dozens of surveys, providing an intuitive interface to query, explore and cross-match data sets of national and international significance. In this presentation, we brie y introduce the current services Data Central offers including: a publication-quality image cutout service, SQL query, a Single Object Viewer bringing together data products (IFS cubes, spectra, catalogues, photometry) from crossmatched sources across multiple surveys, VO services, schema browser and team-curated documentation via an in-house CMS.
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