Welcome to Data-Mining for Astronomy. The purpose of this site is to disseminate articles and ideas concerning computational problems in Astronomy, particularly those related to pattern-recognition and data-mining. Astronomy is experiencing some exciting developments in this field due to the advent of astronomical surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and grid computing projects like Einstein@Home. These kinds of projects may also create exciting opportunities for amateur astronomers with a knack for software development and wishing to make real scientific contributions. In biology, the emergence of high-throughput experimental technologies such as whole-genome sequencing, gene expression analysis, and protein interaction arrays (to name but a few) created an enormous flood of data that was singularly responsible for the development of the field of bioinformatics. We now see the very same trend beginning to occur in astronomy, and I very much expect that “astroinformatics” will play an increasingly important role in astrophysical research. I hope that this site will serve as a clearinghouse for the latest developments in this area and even lead to new collaborations between scientists and software developers. We live in interesting times!
Posted by John Rachlin 