aflak: Visual programming environment enabling end-to-end provenance management for the analysis of astronomical datasets

This paper describes an extendable graphical framework, aflak, which provides a visualization and provenance management environment for the analysis of multi-spectral astronomical datasets. Via its node editor interface, aflak allows the astronomer to compose transforms on input datasets queryable from public astronomical data repositories, then to export the results of the analysis as Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) files, in a manner such that the full provenance of the output data be preserved and reviewable, and that the exported file be usable by other common astronomical analysis software. FITS is the standard of data interchange in astronomy. By embedding aflak’s provenance data into FITS files, we both achieve interoperability with existing software and full reproducibility of the process by which astronomers make discoveries.