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Gary reported the same problem with the missing edit button. I have reported it to the website developer.
There was a change made on Monday to allow quicker edits, so I wonder if that caused an unexpected problem.
AndyI was very sorry to hear of the passing of Wil Tirion. I still own his wonderful Sky Atlas 2000.0 and Uranometria 2000.0. These were both beautifully presented and very practical. I would look over fields in the day, then take them out to the telescope at night.
Even today with modern planetarium software, I regularly use his Cambridge Star Atlas.
A great loss.
AndyHi Paul,
Is there a good reason why the expiry time is so ludicrously small? Other fora I frequent generally allow somewhere between five minutes and an hour. Long enough to spot speeling misteaks or to add an extra sentence of explanation, but not so long that it seriously distorts any historical perspective.
I think you misunderstood.
You can edit a post for up to something like 10 hours after you originally post it. There is another setting that prevents rapid editing of posts. A standard security measure within the forum, I think to prevent issues in case anyone’s account gets hacked, though this is not an area I have much involvement in. This had originally been set to 10 seconds, which is a bit too long. The website developer has amended this to 2 seconds. So anyone trying to edit within 2 seconds of clicking submit will find it won’t work. If they wait between 2 seconds and 10 hours they will be able to edit their post.
Andy
Grrr. Why can’t we edit posts for at least a short time after posting?
There is a protection measure that was preventing editing within 10 seconds. The website developer has now reduced this to 2 seconds.
Andy
Hi Ian,
In that case I would not bother. At this time, other BAA Exoplanet observers are just submitting to Exoclock.
Exoclock was not in existence when I made the amendments to allow the BAA Photometry Database to accept Exoplanet observations. As I understand it, the Exoclock project has plans in place to keep the data publicly available for at least 50 years. I’m not involved in Exoclock so I can’t guarantee this, but it appears they have a solid approach to data retention and accessibility.
Cheers,
AndyHi Ian,
If you can easily do it then yes. It can be useful to have it in more than one database to ensure longevity of the data. However, Exoclock is what matters, as the master database for this data.
The difficulty you may find is converting the output from HOPS into one of the file formats used by the BAA. If that is difficult, then don’t bother.
We have some Exoplanet data in the photometry database. This was uploaded a few years ago, prior to Exoclock.
Best wishes,
Andy Wilson, BAA Photometry Database ManagerIan, thanks for pointing Max in the right direction.
As far as possible the webpages are designed so users can edit and delete observations themselves. There can be occasions where a more complex edit/delete is needed, and I can help with those.
Andy
BAAVSS Database SecretaryHi Giovanni,
I know from my work with the BAA Office that there have been significant problems with posting the Journal to some European countries since the UK left the EU. I am almost certain that is what has been going on here, as several European members have been in contact with the BAA Office.
I suggest you contact the Office at the below link, or from the contact details on the back page of all the Journals.
https://britastro.org/home/about-us/contact-us
They can pass this information onto the Journal printing and mailing company. There may be something they can do. Ultimately, they can send replacement copies if needed, though those too have the risk of getting stuck in the post.
You should have a reply from the Office within a couple of days at most. So here post again if you don’t get a response and I can chase it up.
There is of course the online copy of the Journal, though many of us prefer a hard copy to read.
Best wishes,
AndyI see the June Journal has now been published, with the Newsletter announcing the Journal sent by Janice McClean this morning. You can see it on the website homepage or access it from the Publications menu, noting you have to be logged in to view the full Journal.
My hardcopy of the Journal often arrives a few days after it has been published on the website.
Best wishes,
AndyNo, the June Journal hasn’t yet been published.
I am not directly involved with the Journal, though I’ve seen an email about the preparatory work that goes on behind the scenes, that means it should be very soon. The way to tell is the most recent Journal on the homepage is still April. Once it is published the Newsletter will be emailed. This is timed to be close in time to the hard copy arriving with members who subscribe to the paper version.Hi John,
Assuming this is much later than usual, then I suggest contacting the BAA Office.
https://britastro.org/home/about-us/contact-us
Best wishes,
AndyHi Gary,
I have just tested the contact the Historical Section Director form on Safari on a Mac and it worked fine. I think it must have been something in your message triggering the spam prevention.
Best wishes,
AndyHi Gary,
I suspect I know what is going on. I just sent a couple of test messages and those appeared to work.
The website forms have inbuilt spam protection. This was added last year as the Section Directors were receiving lots of spam, probably generated by bots activating the website form. Occasionally something in a genuine message can trigger the spam filter. Typically a link or phrase. So that would be my guess.
The other possibility is it was browser compatibility or a momentary connection issue. If you let me know which browser you use I can give that a test.
Best wishes,
AndyAt first, I too could not spot the telescope in question. Then I realised there are two monkeys in the picture, near to one another. The one holding the telescope like object is near to the monkey holding the spectacles, hidden mostly behind the painting of ships.
I now think this was a couple of mistakes I made in my searches, so the search is working as expected.
In the search tests I did yesterday, I did not think it was finding anything. I did not take screenshots but it is possible the search returned the same page with the Journals and no detailed results. I may have thought this meant it was not working, when this meant it was finding the text in each of those Journals.
When I did the test this morning, I copied the search term from Callum’s post and pasted it into the search. Then tried other searches with the quotes in place.
Callum has done some investigation, and my copy and paste put forward and back quotes. This stopped the searches from working.
Apologies for wasting Callum’s time as I think it is working as expected.
AndyInteresting. I am seeing some weird and inconsistent behaviour. Unless there is a simple answer I am missing, I suggest me and Callum take this offline.
When I try the Journal search function on “patrick moore” I get no hits (first screenshot), same whether I am logged in or not.
I tried a search on “M29” (I had left the quotation marks as I did it after my Patrick Moore search). First time I got some hits (2nd screenshot). Though this was simply the Journal, no indication of where in the Journal. So I tried a search on “Moore”, no luck. Then did a fresh search on “M29” and this second time nothing (3rd screenshot). I tried removing the quotes and no change.
I wonder if there is more than one place where you can search the Journal and the one I tried is not working, or at least not consistently, and the one Callum tried is working.
I went to Publications -> Journal then typed in the “Search Journals” box.
AndyHi Owen,
There is an index in the February Journal for each year, but I am not sure about an overall index. Perhaps someone else will chip in if there is one?
Another way you can search is to use the magnifying glass at the far right of the menu bar. This searches the whole website, including the Journals.
I will add fixing the Journal search to the to do list for the website developer. I am sure it used to work but I can see it does nothing now.
Best wishes,
AndyHi Kwong,
The usual format is text with a tab delimiter. However, you do not need to concern yourself with the file type and layout. There are several software packages that can create a file in one of the BAA formats. These include MuniPack, ASTAP, AIJ or AIP4Win in combination with the BAA Photometry spreadsheet, and MetroPSF. This page has links to each of these software packages at the top of the page:
https://britastro.org/vssdb/notes_submissions.php
If you have a copy of MS Excel and are comfortable using it, then that might be a good option as I think you are already using AIJ. Otherwise ASTAP, MuniPack and MetroPSF are good options.
I can’t give detailed advice on the individual packages, though I am sure there are members of this forum who can give advice on choosing which to use and how to use it.
Best wishes,
Andy (BAA Photometry Database Manager)Hi Les,
Correct. Macros and other files that can execute code can be used as computer viruses, so anything like that will be blocked.
Just to add some background to BAA members who might be able to help. I developed the initial version of the photometry spreadsheet. It was then adapted to work with AIJ. As I don’t use AIJ there is only so much I can suggest, as it appears to be either a difference in the measurements file output by AIJ, or something causing NaN (not a number) in the file.
Best wishes,
Andy
