Strasbourg astronomical Data Center

Catalogs recently added in VizieR

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Catalogs added between 01-Jun-2026 and 01-Jul-2026

The collection of catalogs was enriched with 50 new catalogs. The full collection of catalogs is available here.

Communication material

Tue, 19 May 2026 05:04:35 +0200

Logos

What?	Logo	Formats & Sizes
CDS		PNG (627x445), JPG (2612x1855)
CDS (no text)		PNG (233x125), PNG (779x417)
Simbad		PNG (192x83), PNG (325x125), PNG (420x245), PNG (663x292), JPG (1750x1021), SVG
VizieR		PNG (92x83), PNG (138x125), PNG (420x245), JPG (1750x1021), SVG
Aladin		PNG (142x83), PNG (242x125), PNG (420x245), PNG (560x327), JPG (1750x1021), SVG
CDSPortal		PNG (627x446), SVG
XMatch		PNG (627x431), SVG
Dictionary of Nomenclature		PNG (400x350)

QR Codes

Aladin	Simbad	VizieR

Flyers

General CDS presentation

Make your data visible in VizieR

SIMBAD presentation

Bookmark

Aladin Lite postcards

Postcards for promoting Aladin Lite during the AAS 2017 winter meeting.

KS4 data release 1

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:38:34 +0200

The spiral galaxy NGC 2442. The high resolution of KS4 reveals the asymmetrically warped spiral arm structure and the distribution of interstellar dust lanes. (Field of view: 21.1' × 11.5'; colour composite from B, V, I bands. Color and contrast adjusted, and image artifacts removed, for visualisation. Credit: Seo-Won Chang / Mankeun Jeong (Seoul National University))

Virtual Observatory training event

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 09:52:41 +0000

Applications open for the Astro-CC Project Training Event (Virtual Observatory School)

The Astro-CC Pilot Project is organizing a hands-on training school on the Virtual Observatory (VO), hosted at the Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory (Strasbourg, France), from Tuesday 29 September to Thursday 1 October 2026.

Tutorials

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

This section gathers tutorials explaining the features and usage of the various CDS services.

More information on the usage of the various CDS services can be found in the individual service documentation pages, or in the different FAQs.

How to generate and visualize HiPS datasets - Astro-CC European Data Provider Forum

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

How to generate and visualize HiPS datasets is a hands-on session presented in Heidelberg (Germany), during Astro-CC European Data Provider Forum on March 25 and March 26 2026.

Tutors: Thomas Boch, Pierre Fernique, Manon Marchand (CDS)

About CDS

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

A data center at the hub of the international cooperation

Strasbourg astronomical Data Centre (CDS) is dedicated to the collection and worldwide distribution of astronomical data and related information.

CDS portal documentation

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Documentation on the CDS portal is available here.

Getting started

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Hugo and Markdown

This version of the CDS website is generated using a static website generator called Hugo.

Most of the time, each HTML page of the CDS Website is a Markdown file. Markdown is a lightweight markup language. A Markdown file looks is simple plain text document with few markup when needed (e.g. titles, links, images, lists, tables).

SIMBAD documentation

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

SIMBAD service

Usage of SIMBAD is described in the SIMBAD User's guide.

Detailed description is available for :

the object types used in SIMBAD.
the list of measurements available in SIMBAD.
the list of journals.
building URLs for SIMBAD queries.

FAQ

See the SIMBAD FAQ for answers to frequent questions.

CoreTrustSeal Certification

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

The CDS has been certified as a Trustworthy Data Repository by the CoreTrustSeal.

CoreTrustSeal is a certification organisation that was announced in 2018 by the World Data System of the International Science Council (WDS) and the Data Seal of approval (DSA). CoreTrustSeal Data Repository certification replaces the DSA certification and WDS Regular Members certification.

Editorial guide

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Good practices

as much as possible limit lines to 80 characters in Markdown file ; it helps low-tech editing and maintenance in terminals (via SSH + vim for instance) ; it is also more readable (only a vertical scroll is needed)
set a title
set a description
set and keep draft: true until the page is ready to go live

Images

Image files can be copied and linked in at least two ways:

Query tools and API

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Aladin

aladin: GitHub repository of the desktop application of the CDS Aladin Sky Atlas.
aladin-lite: GitHub repository of Aladin Lite (an astronomical HiPS visualizer in the browser).
ipyaladin: An IPython Widget for Aladin Lite. It is a bridge between Jupyter and Aladin Lite, enabling interactive sky visualization in IPython notebooks.

Coordinates

cds-mapproj-rust: Rust implementation of (a part of) map projections defined in the FITS World Coordinate System (WCS).
cds-stc-rust: Rust library to read/write IVOA STC-S strings, and to convert them from/to JSON.
wcs-rs: Rust crate to parse WCS (World Coordinate System).

FITS

fitsrs: FITS reader library implemented in pure Rust with nom crate.

HEALPix

cds-healpix-java: CDS implementation in Java of the HEALPix tesselation.
cds-healpix-python: CDS implementation in Python of the HEALPix tesselation.
cds-healpix-rust: CDS implementation in Rust of the HEALPix tesselation and modules to generate libraries in WebAssembly, Python, ...
H3C: HEALPix library for PostgreSQL. The library contains functions to index positions (ra, de) with HEALPix, and others to make a cone search or a crossmatch. It can work with circle, polygon or box.

HiPS

astroquery.hips2fits: Astroquery sub-package to extract FITS images from HiPS sky maps using the CDS hips2fits service.
hips2fits: CDS service for fast generation of FITS images cutouts from HiPS datasets.
hipsgen, hipsgen-cat and hipslint: Java tools to generate and validate HiPS from images, cubes and catalogues.

MOC

astroquery.mocserver: Astroquery sub-package to query the CDS MOC server.
cds.moc: CDS Java MOC library. It lets read, generate and write MOCs.
: MOC library in Rust. One can read, write, create and manipulate HEALPix Multi-Order Coverage maps (MOCs).
It is used in:

Markdown

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Prerequisites

Markdown

This webpage attempts to cover most of the Markdown language. However, you might find helpful to look at some more complete documentation on this topic:

Partners

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Current partners

Name	Description
	Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A)
	American Astronomical Society (AAS)
	Astronomical Data Center (ADC NAOJ - Japan)
	The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS - USA)
	Center For Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (CFA - USA)
	Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES - France)
	European Space Agency (ESA)
	European Southern Observatory (ESO)
	Inter-university Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA - South Africa)
	Institute of Astronomy of The Russian Academy of Science (INASAN - Russia)
	Institut pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC - France)
	Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA - India)
	National Astronomical Observatory of China (NAOC - China)
	NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED - USA)

SIMBAD ADQL examples

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

ADQL means Astronomical Data Query Language. This language is used by the to represent astronomy queries posted to VO services. It is based on SQL (Structured Query Language) and enriched with geometrical functions such as CONTAINS and INTERSECTS. But contrary to SQL, ADQL is only designed to interrogate a database !

Logos

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Usage

All logos listed on this page can be integrated easily in any web page written in Markdown using a custom shortcode named logo.

Simple syntax

This syntax is the most compact and flexible. Indeed, after the shortcode names, all parameters can be provided in any order.

Projects

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Virtual Observatory projects

Active projects

Name	Description
	International Virtual Observatory Alliance
	EUROpean Virtual Observatory
	European Science Cluster of Astronomy & Particle physics ESFRI research infrastructures
	Astronomy ESFRI & Research Infrastructure Cluster
	Observatoires Virtuels France
	Europlanet

Past projects

Name	Description
	Collaborative and Sustainable Astronomical Data Infrastructure for Europe
	Euro-VO International Cooperation Empowerment project
	Euro-VO Astronomical Infrastructure for Data Access
	Euro-VO Data Centre Alliance
VOTech	-

Hosted projects

Name	Description
	AFOEV - Association Française des Observateurs d'Étoiles Variables
	The Opacity Project - The Iron Project

Other projects

Name	Description
	Research Data Alliance
	Astronomical Resource Cross-matching for High Energy Studies
	-
	-

Data publication

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Best practices

A great overview of best practices for publishing data in astronomy and astrophysics journals has been published in Chen et al. 2022. Authors are strongly encouraged to follow these guidelines, nicely summarized in a checklist in Appendix A of the paper.

The CDS staff

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Active staff

Mark Allen	Astronomer
Nathan Barloy	Software engineer
Matthieu Baumann	Software engineer
Thomas Boch	Software engineer
Caroline Bot	Astronomer, Director of the CDS
Ivan Brossard	Software engineer
Marianne Brouty	Engineer (Documentation)
Mihaela Buga	Engineer (Documentation)
Laurent Cambrésy	Astronomer
Esther Collas	Engineer (Documentation)
Sébastien Derrière	Astronomer
Aline Eisele	Engineer (Documentation)
Pierre Fernique	Software engineer
Françoise Genova	Astronomer
Anais Gonneau	Engineer (Documentation)
Céline Halter	CDS Secretary
Diana Ismail	Postdoc
Gilles Landais	Software engineer
Robin Leichtnam	Engineer (Documentation)
Soizick Lesteven	Software engineer
Cécile Loup	Astronomer
Grégory Mantelet	Software engineer
Manon Marchand	Software engineer
Giacomo Monari	Astronomer
Yael Moussouni	PHD student
Ada Nebot	Astronomer
Magali Neuville	Engineer (Documentation)
Anaïs Oberto	Software engineer
Pierre Ocvirk	Astronomer
Thomas Oliveira	PHD student
Mei Palanque	Software engineer
Emmanuelle Perret	Engineer (Documentation)
François-Xavier Pineau	Software engineer
Alessia Romagnoli	Administrative Project Manager
André Schaaff	Software engineer
Arnaud Siebert	Astronomer
Luc Trabelsi	Engineer (Documentation)
Katia van der Woerd	Engineer (Documentation)
Patricia Vannier	Engineer (Documentation)
Karina Voggel	Astronomer
Bernd Vollmer	Astronomer
Philippe Vonflie	Technician (documentation)

Retired staff

They took their retirement:

DSA Certification

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Deprecated page! The DSA certification has been replaced by the CTS (CoreTrustSeal). See the CTS page on the CDS website for more information.

The CDS has been awarded the Data Seal of Approval (DSA, http://www.datasealofapproval.org/en).

VizieR documentation

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

VizieR service

Usage of the VizieR catalogue service is described in the on-line help pages.

The URLs used while querying the VizieR service follow the guidelines defined in the Astronomical Server URL (ASU) proposal.

VizieR ADQL examples

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

The ADQL or Astronomical Data Query Language is used by the VO to represent astronomical queries send to services. It is a SQL-like searching language improved with geometrical functions.

Aladin documentation

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

Aladin Desktop manual

The Aladin Desktop manual is available in the following laguages :

Dedicated documentations are also available for :

the filters in Aladin Desktop (PDF).
the Aladin Desktop script commands.

Aladin Lite documentation

See the Aladin web pages for documentation on Aladin Lite usage, and the Aladin Lite API.

xMatch documentation

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:17:17 +0200

The CDS xMatch (cross-match) service is a tool allowing astronomers to efficiently cross-identify sources between very large catalogues (up to a few billion rows) or between a user-uploaded list of positions and a large catalogue.