Cosmic Variability --- Mass Data Management and IT Challenges of Astronomical Databases

Wen-Ping Chen, Institute of Astronomy, National Central University, Taiwan

I will describe specifically two projects that are IT intensive. The first one, the Taiwan-America Occultation Survey (TAOS), uses an array of 4 0.5-m telescopes, sited in Taiwan, to monitor some thousand of stars at 4 Hz for light variation. The goal is to catch chance stellar occultation events, and from the occurrence rate to estimate the number of small icy bodies at the outer edge of the solar system. Some 100 GB worth of data are collected every night. The second project is the Panaromic Survey Telescopes and Rapid Response Systems (Pan-STARRS), which uses 4 1.8-m telescopes, located in Hawaii, for a deep and high-cadence sky survey. Anything that changes, be it the brightness (e.g., variable stars, abrupted supernovae, or transient events) or the position (e.g., comets, asteroids), will be recorded. A few TB worth of data will be generated per night. I will outline the client (scientific) demands of these projects and the related IT
challenges.