There are a variety of tools available for interacting with the results of a search. The most prominent tool in the search results window is the AstroView Tool, which shows the footprint(s) of entries in the results grid superimposed on a sky background (by default, the Digital Sky Survey). AstroView is described separately.

Of the remaining tools, not all are available for every result.  The following tools are indicated as icons in the Actions column:

Cutout Tool

Some observations have cutouts of FITS images available for display.  Cutouts are hidden from search results by default.  To toggle the display of image cutouts, check the relevant cutout checkbox or radio button depending on the current view.

Checking the box will show a new Cutout column which displays cutout images for all search results where available (Figure 1). Results that have no cutouts available will display "No Cutout Available". 

Figure 1 — Search Results List View. Check the "Show Cutout" checkbox to display a new "Cutout" column in the table, which will display any available FITS image cutouts.

Viewing cutouts in Album View (see Figure 2) opens up the option to change the resolution of the cutout. Use the drop-down menu on the right-hand side. 

Figure 2 — Search Results Album View. Left: Checking the "Cutout" radio button displays the image cutouts in the results panels.  Right: The resolution of the image cutouts can be changed with the dropdown menu on the far right.

Image Overlay 

The Image Overlay action button indicates that the image of the relevant observation can be overlaid on the AstroView on-sky panel; see Figure 3.

Figure 3 — the Image Overlay action. Clicking the "Image Overlay" action button overlays the image cutout in the AstroView tool, with the proper WCS coordinate matching.

Spectral Viewer 

The Spectral Viewer action button indicates that the relevant observation has a spectrum that can be viewed with the Spectrum Plotter tool.   Clicking this button opens up a new window (Fig. 4), displaying the spectrum for the given row.  To select and overplot multiple spectra (up to 10), select all valid rows of interest you wish to view, and click the Spectrum Viewer icon that is located in the Search Results Toolbar.  This opens up the same window with all selected spectra over-plotted. 

Figure 4 — the Spectrum Viewer tool.  Configuration Panel (left): Options for configuring the spectrum display, adding markers or spectral lines, or performing spectral line fitting.  Spectrum Panel (middle): Displays any loaded spectrum as flux vs wavelength.  Legend Panel (right): Contains all spectra loaded into the tool, as  well as any additional markers, as toggle-able display elements.

Watch this video for details on the features of the Spectrum Viewer Tool.

The Configuration Panel has the following sections:

Timeseries Viewer 

The TimeSeries action button indicates that the relevant observation has a time-series spectrum that can be viewed with the TimeSeries Plotter tool.   Clicking this button opens up a new window (Figure 5), displaying the time series for the given row.  All the spectra in the series are made available in the legend, but only one series may be viewed at a time.   Time series also have an option to phase fold the data to discover periodic events such as transiting exoplanets. Phase folding may be enabled by entering a period (and optionally an epoch to apply a shift) and checking the "Enable Phase Folding" checkbox in the Phase Folding configuration section.

Figure 5 — Time Series Viewer tool.  Configuration Panel (left): Options for configuring the spectrum display, or phase-folding the spectrum.  Spectrum Panel (middle): Displays any loaded spectrum as flux vs time.  Legend Panel (right): Contains all spectra loaded into the tool.

The Configuration Panel has the following sections:

Cross-Match Tool 

To cross-match a set of search results against other MAST or CDS catalogs, click the Cross-Match button, located in the Search Results Toolbar, to display a pop-up window (Figure 6). Select the catalog resource against which to match, specify the match radius in arcseconds, choose whether to match against all rows or a selected subset, and click the cross-match button to begin the search.   The returned results will display as a new tab in the main Search Results Grid.  The new tab will display all columns from the original search plus all columns from the matched catalog.  To perform a successful cross-match, the original search results must contain proper RA and Dec coordinate columns.  If no results are found, or an error occurred during cross-match, a pop-up message will be displayed indicating the reason, and no new tab will be created.

Figure 6 — the Cross-Match tool. Select any single catalog to perform a cross-match against. Specify a search radius and which rows to perform the cross-match on, and click the Cross-Match button.

Charting Tool 

To explore scatter plot relationships between columns in a set of search results, click the Charting Tool button, located in the Search Results Toolbar, to display a pop-up window (Figure 7).   The plotter tool lets you plot any two numeric columns against each other for display as a scatter plot.  Columns can also be combined by selecting the Combine Columns button, which allows for arithmetic between two columns.  Each axis can be configured by adjusting the range sliders or manually specifying new axis bounds. The plot image will automatically adjust.  Click "Reset Range" to reset the axis ranges to their defaults.  The user may also click-and-drag in the plot window to zoom in on a region, which also updates the axis ranges automatically.  Data subsets may be selected by holding Shift while click-and-dragging.  The selected subsets will update the results displayed in the Results Grid. 

The Configuration Panel has the following sections: