Simple Cone Search

This Simple Cone Search (ConeSearch) defines a simple query protocol for retrieving records from a catalog of astronomical sources. The query describes sky position and an angular distance, defining a cone on the sky. The response returns a list of astronomical sources from the catalog whose positions lie within the cone, formatted as a VOTable.

Current Recommendation

Current IVOA Recommendation is ConeSearch-1.03 (20080222).

Its RFC page can be found here and the sequence of PR leading to SCS-1.03 can be found in the IVOA Document Repository.

Errata for this specification can be found here.

Next page for this specification can be found here.

Current Activities

A revision of the Simple Cone Search is in progress.

The latest DAL internal Working Draft for ConeSearch-1.1 is attached to this page (dated 2020-01-16). This internal WD includes the first steps in adding the TIME parameter for time filtering the records. Have a look at the changelog for an idea of the changes.

The drafting process can be followed on the IVOA-std GitHub repo (replacing the former volute, already in ivoatex format).

Discussion will happen on the DAL mailing list, DAL sessions, slack channels and other media, and possibly summarised on the Cone Search 1.03 Next TWiki topic.