useful links
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🔭 Research Tools
- NASA ADS – the best place to find astronomy papers
- NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED)
- VizieR Catalog Service
- IRSA – Infrared Science Archive
- Aladin Sky Atlas
- TOPCAT – desktop tool for catalog wrangling
- Astroquery – Python access to all the above
- Euclid Consortium
- Astro Data Lab – big surveys + notebook access
- MAST – archive for JWST, HST, GALEX, etc.
- ESA Sky – pan-European archive browser
- Legacy Survey Viewer
📦 Catalogs, Surveys, and Data
- COSMOS2020 (Weaver+22)
- COSMOS2020 SMF (Weaver+23)
- UNCOVER Catalog (Weaver+24)
- CEERS (Wright+24)
- Euclid ERO (Weaver+25)
- HSC Strategic Survey Program
- DAWN Survey
- H20 Survey
- UNCOVER/MegaScience
- CosmoHub
- DAWN JWST Archive
🛠 Software
- The Farmer – lightweight SED fitting and plotting
- The Tractor – flexible model fitting of astronomical images
- bagpipes – Bayesian galaxy spectral modeling
- pygappy – measure spectral breaks and absorption features
- Prospector – flexible SED modeling in Python
- SEP – Python wrapper for SExtractor
- Astropy – foundational astronomy Python toolkit
- synphot – synthetic photometry for your favorite filters
🛰️ Facility and Instrument Docs
🗓 Observatory Schedules
🧠 Astro Careers & Education
- AstroBetter Wiki – job advice, negotiation tips, teaching guides
- AAS Job Register
- Mentoring365 – free mentorship from AGU, AAS, etc.
🌤 Weather & Observing Tools
- Clear Dark Sky – cloud/seeing/transparency forecasts
- Windy – full meteorological overlays and simulations
- MeteoBlue – professional seeing and jetstream forecasts
- GOES Satellite Viewer – real-time cloud cover and water vapor
- IRIS Solar Monitor – if you’re a solar buff
🤓 Distractions
- Lego Grad Student
- PhD Comics
- xkcd
- Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Space Weather – sunspots, auroras, and satellites at risk
- AstroBites – daily digest of recent papers written by grad students
- AAS Nova – research highlights and news