In this work, we present a methodology and a corresponding code-base for constructing mock integral field spectrograph (IFS) observations of simulated galaxies in a consistent and reproducible way. Such methods are necessary to improve the collaboration and comparison of observation and theory results, and accelerate our understanding of how the kinematics of galaxies evolve over time. This code, SimSpin, is an open-source package written in R, but also with an API interface such that the code can be interacted with in any coding language. Documentation and individual examples can be found at the open-source website connected to the online repository. SimSpin is already being utilised by international IFS collaborations, including SAMI and MAGPI, for generating comparable data sets from a diverse suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations.

We present a calibration component for the Murchison Widefield Array All-Sky Virtual Observatory (MWA ASVO) utilising a newly developed PostgreSQL database of calibration solutions. Since its inauguration in 2013, the MWA has recorded over 34 petabytes of data archived at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. According to the MWA Data Access policy, data become publicly available 18 months after collection. Therefore, most of the archival data are now available to the public. Access to public data was provided in 2017 via the MWA ASVO interface, which allowed researchers worldwide to download MWA uncalibrated data in standard radio astronomy data formats (CASA measurement sets or UV FITS files). The addition of the MWA ASVO calibration feature opens a new, powerful avenue for researchers without a detailed knowledge of the MWA telescope and data processing to download calibrated visibility data and create images using standard radio astronomy software packages. In order to populate the database with calibration solutions from the last 6 yr we developed fully automated pipelines. A near-real-time pipeline has been used to process new calibration observations as soon as they are collected and upload calibration solutions to the database, which enables monitoring of the interferometric performance of the telescope. Based on this database, we present an analysis of the stability of the MWA calibration solutions over long time intervals.

We present SimSpin, a new, public, software framework for generating integral field spectroscopy (IFS) data cubes from N-body/hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies, which can be compared directly with observational datasets. SimSpin provides a consistent method for studying a galaxy’s stellar component. It can be used to explore how observationally inferred measurements of kinematics, such as the spin parameter $\lambda_R$ , are impacted by the effects of, for example, inclination, seeing conditions, distance. SimSpin is written in R and has been designed to be highly modular, flexible, and extensible. It is already being used by the astrophysics community to generate IFS-like cubes and FITS files for direct comparison of simulations to observations. In this paper, we explain the conceptual framework of SimSpin; how it is implemented in R; and we demonstrate SimSpin’s current capabilities, providing as an example a brief investigation of how numerical resolution affects how reliably we can recover the intrinsic stellar kinematics of a simulated galaxy.

Binary and multiple stars have long provided an effective method of testing stellar formation and evolution theories. In particular, wide binary systems with separations > 20,000 au are particularly challenging as their physical separations are beyond the typical size of a collapsing cloud core (5,000 - 10,000 au). We present here a preliminary work in which we make use of the TGAS catalogue and Virtual Observatory tools and services (Aladin, TOPCAT, STILTS, VOSA, VizieR) to identify binary and multiple star candidate systems. The catalogue will be available from the Spanish VO portal (http://svo.cab.inta-csic.es) in the coming months.

Statistical studies of active galaxies (both AGN and Starburst) using large multi-wavelength data are presented, including new studies of Markarian galaxies, large sample of IR galaxies, variable radio sources, and large homogeneous sample of X-ray selected AGN. Markarian survey (the First Byurakan Survey) was digitized and the DFBS database was created, as the biggest spectroscopic database by the number of objects involved ( ~ 20 million). This database provides both 2D images and 1D spectra. We have carried out a number of projects aimed at revealing and multi-wavelength studies of active galaxies among optical, X-ray, IR and radio sources. Thousands of X-ray sources were identified from ROSAT, including many AGN (52% among all identified sources). IRAS PSC/FSC sources were studied having accurate positions from WISE and a large extragalactic sample was created for further search for AGNs. The fraction of active galaxies among IR-selected galaxies was estimated as 24%. Variable radio sources at 1.4 GHz were revealed by cross-correlation of NVSS and FIRST catalogues using the method introduced by us for optical variability. Radio-X-ray sources were revealed from NVSS and ROSAT for detection of new active galaxies. Big Data in astronomy is described that provide new possibilities for statistical research of active galaxies and other objects.