SPARCL: SPectra Analysis and Retrievable Catalog Lab

TL;DR

SPARCL is a comprehensive platform at NOIRLab that provides efficient access, querying, and analysis tools for large optical and infrared spectroscopic datasets, supporting over 7.5 million spectra from major surveys.

Contribution

It introduces a unified service and tools for discovering, querying, and retrieving spectra from large datasets, facilitating research in astronomy.

Findings

Contains spectra for over 7.5 million celestial objects

Provides fast web-based access and bulk retrieval of spectra

Includes documentation and Jupyter notebooks for user support

Abstract

SPectra Analysis and Retrievable Catalog Lab (SPARCL) at NOIRLab's Astro Data Lab was created to efficiently serve large optical and infrared spectroscopic datasets. It consists of services, tools, example workflows and currently contains spectra for over 7.5 million stars, galaxies and quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey. We aim to eventually support the broad range of spectroscopic datasets that will be hosted at NOIRLab and beyond. Major elements of SPARCL include capabilities to discover and query for spectra based on parameters of interest, a fast web service that delivers desired spectra either individually or in bulk as well as documentation and example Jupyter Notebooks to empower users in their research. More information is available on the SPARCL website (https://astrosparcl.datalab.noirlab.edu).