Analysis framework for GLORIA

GLORIA stands for “GLObal Robotic-telescopes Intelligent Array”. GLORIA will be the first free and open-access network of robotic telescopes of the world. It will be a Web 2.0 environment where users can do research in astronomy by observing with robotic telescopes, and/or analyzing data that other users have acquired with GLORIA, or from other free access databases, like the European Virtual Observatory. GLORIA project will define free standards, protocols and methodology for controlling Robotic Telescopes and related instrumentation, for
conducting so called on-line experiments by scheduling observations in the telescope network, and for conducting so-called off-line experiments based on the analysis of astronomical meta-data produced by GLORIA or other databases.

Luiza analysis framework for GLORIA was based on the Marlin package developed for the International Linear Collider (ILC), data analysis. HEP experiments have to deal with enormous amounts of data and distributed data analysis is a must, so the Marlin framework concept seemed to be well suited for GLORIA needs. The idea (and large parts of code) taken from Marlin is that every computing task is implemented as a processor (module) that analyzes the data stored in an internal data structure and created additional output is also added to that collection. The advantage of such a modular approach is to keep things as simple as possible. Every single step of the full analysis chain that goes eg. from raw images to light curves can be processed separately and the output of each step is still self consistent and can be fed in to the next step without any manipulation.