Astro+ database. I. Description and first results
The vast amounts of spectroscopic data for massive stars provided by previous and existing instruments on ground-based and space-based telescopes have saturated our capability to process them by human inspection routines. Consequently, there is a pressing need for fully automatic machine-assisted tools to help handle incoming data. To this end, we present the development of a massive star spectroscopic interactive database, Astro+. We aim to provide users with a reliable, versatile, and user-friendly platform that will be significant for understanding massive stars and set an important precedent for future open-access astrophysical research. This tool allows authorized users to upload their own spectra and, by using the fully automated tool HiLineThere, a Python-based program, it can homogeneously derive basic stellar parameters, such as v_rad, v sin i, Teff and log g for massive OB-type stars, using a solar-metallicity grid of FASTWIND models, and v_rad, [Fe/H], Teff and log g for red supergiant stars, in a completely autonomous way. Here we present the first results of the tool HiLineThere on optical spectra for OB-type stars and red supergiants. We compare the output of our analysis for OB-type stars with literature values for a large sample of well-studied objects, finding differences within the expected error ranges: Teff ~ 800 K, log g ~ 0.1 dex, and v sin i ~ 10 km/s. Preliminary tests on early-B stars also show consistent results during the transition to lower temperatures. For red supergiants, we find differences within 7 km/s in v_rad and ~300 K in Teff for two test samples.