sci19007 — Announcement

The HCV Explorer: Enabling Discoveries in the Hubble Catalog of Variables (HCV)

24 September 2019

By Maria Arevalo, Raul Gutierrez, Javier Duran, Jesus Salgado, Deborah Baines, Bruno Merin, Guido de Marchi, Paule Sonnentrucker and Antonella Nota

The HCV Explorer is a new online web tool to access and visualise the time-series data from the Hubble Catalog of Variables (HCV). Developed by the ESAC Science Data Centre (ESDC), the HCV Explorer offers interactive and connected exploration of the HCV with the aim of aiding the exploration of the catalog. This tool also aims to enhance data discovery and user experience through visual exploration.

The first version of the HCV Explorer, released today, allows users to search by target name or coordinates to discover the variable sources around a target in the sky. The results are connected to plots, showing the available light curves for each variable source or the variability of the source and its associated neighbours. This is also displayed with tabular results and data download functionalities. For example, users can search for any object or region of choice. They can then easily identify the single and multi-filter variable candidates, plot their light curves, and download the data. The results table provides column sorting, including expert classification and identification of high confidence variables, probable variables, possible artifacts, and any candidate variables that have not yet been classified by experts.

The dataset download of the entire catalog is available from the HCV Explorer, the eHST/ESAC, and MAST. The catalog is also available via the IVOA Table Access Protocol (TAP), which allows users to access the catalog in a number of ways. All computing details are available here.

See here for video tutorials on how to use the HCV Explorer.

Contacts

Maria Arevalo (ESA) & Antonella Nota (ESA/STScI)
Email: hubblenewseurope@stsci.edu