In previous posts I mentioned our “Searching for White Dwarfs” application which was aimed at illustrating how “typical” Grid applications could be easily built using existing Web Services technologies and tools. I have now started putting some more information together on a page (you’ll also find some screenshots).

Most of the application is ready but I am still working on some of the astronomy behind it so as to allow for more detailed analysis of the selected stars. Some problems with accessing the Web Service of the Supercosmos Scientific Archive have to be sorted too. I had no issues with the SkyServer interface to the SDSS archive so far.

I am also waiting for the OMII to release their job submission service for Windows XP so I can submit computational jobs securely using WS-Security. Their software already runs on SuSe but I do all my development on Windows so for testing purposes I need their service to run on my laptop.

I will post more information on this soon. Let me know if you have any questions/comments/suggestions.

I have been playing with Avalon lately because I am planning to move the 3D visualisation part from C++ and OpenGL to Avalon. Should be fun.