What is a Virtual Observatory?

A Virtual Observatory (VO) is a suite of software applications on a set of computers that allows users to uniformly find, access, and use resources (data, software, document, and image products and services using these) from a collection of distributed product repositories and service providers. A VO is a service that unites services and/or multiple repositories.

-- D. Aaron Roberts: presented October, 2004, Greenbelt, MD.

What does it contain?

How can I access it?

Is it free?

What will happen with the CEDAR database?

Why is there more than one catalog?

Who can I ask for help?

I don't see my tool, why not?

What about education?