Virtual Observatory as a tool for stellar spectroscopy

Extract

The Virtual Observatory (VO) is often presented as an all-purpose tool for the astronomer to do all his current work in a single web browser, from which he can control all data searches, reductions and mainly the full data analysis. This idea seems to be already fulfilling in certain fields of astronomy like is the search of unknown correlations between various parameters in large scale surveys, galaxy statistics or cross-identification of objects. The current VO tools are, however, lacking support for important capabilities needed in stellar spectroscopy. Especially the high-resolution spectroscopy of stars with rapid line profile variations or of those with complicated emission profiles (like Be or symbiotic stars) benefits from a number of specific methods implemented today only in stand-alone legacy packages working with local data.