In this contribution I will briefly introduce the concept and objectives of the Open Universe Initiative, as well as describe the first steps of its implementation by Brazil, in conjunction with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), aiming to encourage new interested parties to join the Initiative.

We shall describe the various activities done by us in Covid Times including outreach and educational workshops in Physics and Astronomy. We shall discuss the caveats in virtual teaching of Astronomy and the lessons learnt in the process.

Open Astronomy is an important and valuable goal, including the availability of refereed science papers and user-friendly public astronomy data archives. The latter allow and encourage interested researchers from around the world to visualise, analyse and possibly download data from many different science and frequency domains. With the enormous growth of data volumes and complexity, open archives are essential to explore ideas and make discoveries. Open source software is equally important for many reasons, including reproducibility and collaboration. I will present examples of open archive and software tools, including the CSIRO ASKAP Science Data Archive (CASDA), the Local Volume HI Survey (LVHIS), the 3D Source Finding Application (SoFiA) and the Busy Function (BF). Astronomy is international and includes or links to an incredibly wide range of sciences, computing, engineering, and education. Its open nature can serve as an example for world-wide interdisciplinary collaborations.

We shall present with examples how analysis of astronomy data can be used for an educational purpose to train users in methods of data analysis, statistics, programming skills and research problems. Special reference will be made to our IAU-OAD project ‘Astronomy from Archival Data’ where we are in the process of building a repository of instructional videos and reading material for undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as interested participants. Virtual Observatory tools will also be discussed and applied. As this is an ongoing project, by the time of the conference we will have the projects and work done by students included in our presentation. The material produced can be freely used by the community.

Astronomy has an enviable wealth of historical observations. Some verge on the archaeological, and display rare events such as novæ and supernovæ; others range up to 100 or more years in age, and bear unique information about events that will never repeat in detail. Yet most astronomers today know little of those resources and the scientific potential which they harbour, so rather infrequent use is made today of those historical data. The problem is that historical data were perforce obtained in analogue formats, and because of those formats the data too tend to be regarded as hailing from a culture whose scientific significance is passé. But the medium is not the message! Astronomy’s archives of photographic observations constitute an irreplaceable resource. The change in technology from analogue to electronic recording in the late 20th Century was abrupt, and it left most of today’s astronomers unable to handle and use photographic data, and led to a general skepticism of the value of photographic observations for present-day studies of variability in the cosmos. But that is precisely what older data can do; in particular, the older the data the more reliable the base-line against which one can measure new trends, refine orbital parameters, discern period modulations, etc.

Astronomy’s heritage, comprised mainly of several million photographic plates (both images and spectra), extends backwards in time for many decades. It constitutes a unique and irreplaceable resource for research into long-term variations. Unfortunately, to date rather few of the plates can be accessed in digital formats and cannot therefore be used in modern research. That lack of use encourages the attitude that ‘old’ data have no value and might as well be destroyed. This Workshop discussed ways and means to avert such threats, and prioritised a list of actions that need to be taken as soon as possible.

Gaia DR1 was released in September 2016 and contained a photometric catalogue of over 1 billion sources. At this stage, this only included mean G-band photometry and an estimate of the error. Even though this may sound limited in nature, interesting science can still be achieved with this data thanks to its quality. A high level overview of the photometric processing and some validation results will be presented. Additionally, epoch photometry in the G-band was released in Gaia DR1 for a small number of variable sources in the South Ecliptic Pole which covers the LMC. The second data release (Gaia DR2) is currently being prepared and, if available, some preliminary validation results will be presented. It is planned that this release will contain colour information in the form of integrated BP and RP photometry in addition to the latest G-band photometry.

In order to understand the Galactic structure, we perform a statistical analysis of the distribution of various cluster parameters based on an almost complete sample of Galactic open clusters yet available. The geometrical and physical characteristics of a large number of open clusters given in the MWSC catalogue are used to study the spatial distribution of clusters in the Galaxy and determine the scale height, solar offset, local mass density and distribution of reddening material in the solar neighbourhood. We also explored the mass-radius and mass-age relations in the Galactic open star clusters. We find that the estimated parameters of the Galactic disk are largely influenced by the choice of cluster sample.

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.

The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is a 2.4 m telescope with a large field of view ( ~ 0.3 deg2) and fine angular resolution (0.11”). WFIRST’s Wide Field Instrument (WFI) will obtain images in the Z, Y, J, H, F184, W149 (wide) filter bands, and grism spectra of the same large field of view. The data volume of the WFIRST Science Archive is expected to reach a few Petabytes. We describe plans to enable users to find the data of interest and, if needed, to analyze the data in situ using sophisticated software tools provided by the archive. As preparation, we are building a mini-archive that will help us to define realistic science requirements and to design the full WFIRST Science Archive.

We review recent advances and ongoing work in evolving the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) beyond an object reference database into a data mining discovery engine. Updates to the infrastructure and data integration techniques are enabling more than a 10-fold expansion; NED will soon contain over a billion objects with their fundamental attributes fused across the spectrum via cross-identifications among the largest sky surveys (e.g., GALEX, SDSS, 2MASS, AllWISE, EMU), and over 100,000 smaller but scientifically important catalogs and journal articles. The recent discovery of super-luminous spiral galaxies exemplifies the opportunities for data mining and science discovery directly from NED’s rich data synthesis. Enhancements to the user interface, including new APIs, VO protocols, and queries involving derived physical quantities, are opening new pathways for panchromatic studies of large galaxy samples. Examples are shown of graphics characterizing the content of NED, as well as initial steps in exploring the database via interactive statistical visualizations.

We created the Herschel1 Footprint Database and web services for the Herschel Space Observatory imaging data. For this database we set up a unified data model for the PACS and SPIRE Herschel instruments, from the pointing and header information of each observation, generated and stored sky coverages (footprints) of the observations in their exact geometric form. With this tool we extend the capabilities of the Herschel Science Archive by providing an effective search tool that is able to find observations for selected sky locations (objects), or even in larger areas in the sky.

We present here evidence for the existence of a citation advantage within astrophysics for papers that link to data. Using simple measures based on publication data from NASA Astrophysics Data System we find a citation advantage for papers with links to data receiving on the average significantly more citations per paper than papers without links to data. Furthermore, using INSPEC and Web of Science databases we investigate whether either papers of an experimental or theoretical nature display different citation behavior.

In the 1990s of the last century, CCD cameras became more reachable. Due to many advantages of CCD cameras, astronomers began using them as the primary detector for photometry of stellar objects. A typical observatory, which operates one telescope at a time, obtained 0.5 TB of raw data during two decades, that means one million about 500 kB-sized files. There are several observatories in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (taking into account all scientific, public as well as private ones). A rough estimate of the total amount of this photometric data is 10 TB, which could be a very interesting source of observational data. Unfortunately, these data are not available online. These data are stored in observatory archives in arbitrary format. Often it is not even possible to find requested data. We have decided to change this state by establishing a common archive of raw photometric data, which would be available online together with tools for searching, listing etc. We already defined the data format, file and directory structure of our archive. We developed sophisticated tools for archive maintenance as well. Our goal is to provide data storage with simple and straightforward access and we are ready to interconnect with the VO right after the IVOA Photometry Data Model will be released.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is the most ambitious ground-based survey currently planned in the visible band. Mapping of the Milky Way is one of the four main science and design drivers. The main 20,000 sq.deg. large survey area will be imaged about 1000 times in six bands (ugrizy) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, with the first light expected in 2015. These data will result in databases including 10 billion galaxies and a similar number of stars, and will serve the majority of science programs. In the Milky Way context, these deep LSST data will enable unprecedented studies of distant stars in Galactic halo, as well as intrinsically faint nearby objects, such as white dwarfs and LTY dwarfs.

We summarize recent work on the Milky Way “tomography” with SDSS and use these results to illustrate what further breakthroughs can be expect from Gaia and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). LSST is the most ambitious ground-based survey currently planned in the visible band. Mapping of the Milky Way is one of the four main science and design drivers. The main 20 000 deg2. survey area will be imaged about 1000 times in six bands (ugrizy) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, with the first light expected in 2015. Due to Gaia's superb astrometric and photometric accuracy, and LSST's significantly deeper data, the two surveys are highly complementary: Gaia will map the Milky Way's disk with unprecedented detail, and LSST will extend this map all the way to the halo's edge.

In order to detect variable stars in the well known star forming region, the Orion Nebula Cluster, a series of 22 exposures taken from November 1996 to October 1998, using the ESO 100/152cm Schmidt telescope, covering a field of 5° × 5° was analyzed. The films (Kodak Tech-Pan 4415 emulsions, effective spectral range from ~630 nm to 690 nm) were digitized by the SuperCOSMOS machine, the measurements calibrated to the R magnitude of the USNO B1.0 catalogue and differential photometry was performed throughout the whole field. In the process, a set of 260 stars that remained constant in the 22 films and were well distributed over the field was selected and used as comparison stars for the differential photometry of all the other stars in the field. Diverse statistical studies were performed in order to characterize the type and degree of variability of the objects. The 22 films, all exposed for 30 minutes each, were stacked together at our request by the SuperCOSMOS team, producing perhaps the deepest wide field image of M42 ever taken.

This database (>150 000 objects, mostly stars and ~2% galaxies) is going to be used as a starting point for the Variable Young Stellar Object Survey (VYSOS) project, which consists of 2 fully automated robotic telescopes of 41cm each, one installed on Mauna Loa (Hawaii, USA) and the other at Cerro Armazones (Chile), both using the Pan STARRS set of photometric filters. We discovered thousands of new variable stars within the 5° × 5° region studied. We have variability statistics for all objects and are classifying the variable stars according to the variability type and amplitude. We intend to make this database available via the WEB.

We describe how the Virtual Observatory (VO) projects in Europe, the USA, Japan, and elsewhere are meeting the challenge of providing simple and efficient access to the data from the world's observational facilities, together with applications and computational resources required to support the analysis of this data. We note the pan-European Euro-VO project and its technological development VO-TECH project which are now in the process of designing the framework for comprehensive access to emerging high data volume facilities such as ESO's VISTA infrared survey telescope.

Science drivers from major new astronomical missions are helping to define the development of the VO. Scientifically this is in terms of developing systems able to meet the demands of the main science programmes shaping the ELTs. VOs must be able to handle the large data streams from the complex multiplexed instruments on the ELTs, and provide access to applications required to analyse/interpret the data. VOs must enable the effective distribution of ELT data to the global community.

Conversely, the rapid development of the Virtual Observatory, offers opportunities for major new projects such at the ELTs. This could be: in the design of their down stream data-flow systems; in terms of opening up access to ‘real-time’ availability of ancillary data flows; in multi-wavelength observational programmes.

We highlight these areas, and give some specific current examples of early VO usage in delivering science from, e.g. the mining of deep multi-wavelength surveys to study the high redshift universe.