abstract.txt

Open high-level data formats and software for gamma-ray astronomy
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Authors: Christoph Deil, Jeremy Perkins, Catherine Boisson, Johannes King, Peter
Eger, Michael Mayer, Matthew Wood, Victor Zabalza, Jürgen Knödlseder, Tarek
Hassan, Lars Mohrmann, Alexander Ziegler, Bruno Khelifi, Daniela Dorner, Gernot
Maier, Giovanna Pedaletti, Jaime Rosado, José Luis Contreras, Julien Lefaucheur,
Kai Brügge, Mathieu Servillat, Régis Terrier, Roland Walter, Saverio Lombardi

In gamma-ray astronomy, a variety of data formats and proprietary software
exist, often developed for one specific mission or experiment. Especially for
ground-based imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs), data and software
have been so far mostly private to the collaborations operating the telescopes.
However, there is a general movement in science towards open data and software
and the next big IACT array, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), will be
operated as an open observatory.

We have created a Github organisation at https://github.com/open-gamma-ray-astro
where we are developing high-level data format specifications. A public mailing
list was set up at https://lists.nasa.gov/mailman/listinfo/open-gamma-ray-astro
and a first face-to-face meeting on the IACT high-level data model and formats
took place in April 2016 in Meudon (France). The hope is that this open
multi-mission effort will help to accelerate the development of open data
formats and open-source software for gamma-ray astronomy, leading to synergies
in the development of analysis codes and eventually better scientific results
(reproducible, multi-mission). This poster will summarize what we have done so
far, and has the goal to solicit comments and future contributions from the
gamma-ray astronomy community.