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Hi Paul,
Sorry this is causing you hassle. The point is these ‘warning’ messages are very useful to a large number of our observers. A ‘warning’ simply means ‘can you take a quick look at this to make sure it is expected’. It allows you to proceed with adding the data as only the observer has the knowledge of whether to expect a recognised chart or the other warning messages that are generated. When the upload generates an ‘error’ message then that means something is wrong and it won’t let the upload proceed.
We do have some AAVSO charts in the database. These tend to be older charts before they implemented their latest chart system, or charts created at a specific point in time. When I created the database I had discussions with the AAVSO about getting a copy of their chart data to add to our database. The problem is their charts are not static. A chart ID is not guaranteed to generate the same chart when entered at a later date, as any changes to the AAVSO chart database will result in the same ID giving a slightly different chart.
The chart is particularly important to the visual observers as the BAA database can recalculate magnitudes to the latest sequence. It can actually do that for digital as well as visual observations where sufficient information is provided, though we currently only have it turned on for visual observations.
As a final note, I would point out the AAVSO charts are fantastic and used by many BAA observers. It is just the BAA database cannot use them for more detailed processing as their chart IDs do not uniquely identify the comparison stars and their magnitudes.
Best wishes,
AndyHi Paul,
I successfully use a Quark Chromosphere with a Williams Optics 66 and 81mm refractors for visual observing. I use a UV/IR filter.
While this works, it isn’t quite a quick grab and go setup as I have to wait for the Quark to reach the right temperature and sometimes tweak it to get the view at its best.
Best wishes,
AndyHi Paul,
I believe these charts are designed for use by visual observers. There the simplicity of a single decimal place is beneficial to the visual observer.
Cheers,
AndyFor those who are going, I have added some information about car parking sent to me by Hazel Collett.
https://britastro.org/event/baa-spring-meeting
Best wishes,
AndyHi Alex,
We are in discussions with the venue to try to get the talks recorded. I think this is likely but not completely guaranteed.
They are definitely not going to be on Zoom or livestreamed to YouTube. What we are working on is the venue making the recording, then sending this to us afterwards for editing and adding to the BAA YouTube channel.
Best wishes,
AndyThis has somewhat hi-jacked the Winchester thread, but it is good to discuss these matters.
I suspect there may now be easier ways we can record meetings. For example, since Windows 10 an inbuilt screen recorder comes as standard. I also expect that more venues will gain the ability to record meetings for us. At Elgin the university staff kindly recorded the meeting for us without charging us extra. However, they had to work this out on the fly and we did not know if the meeting would be successfully recorded until the actual day.
There are also occasions where the organisers as well as the presenters do not want the meeting recorded, to encourage in-person attendance.
Whatever we do, I think finding more volunteers would help to increase the number of meetings we record.
Hi Mike,
James has hit the proverbial nail on the head.
The BAA is lacking volunteers. With some venues we are fortunate enough that they already have the IT equipment and staff available to make the recordings, but this is not the case at Winchester. Even then it requires a BAA volunteer or paid staff to edit the videos and put them online. It could be argued that the BAA should pay contractors to record meetings around the country. That would need to be paid out of the reserves as our annual outgoings are about twice the subscription income.
This is a good opportunity to point out that we don’t yet have a volunteer to become the Meetings Secretary after Hazel Collett stands down a the end of this year. Noting Ann Davies rather than Hazel Collett organises the Winchester Weekend, with help from other BAA volunteers.
The 1972 recording is 3 minutes of people walking around the venue without sound. Interesting to see that for 50 years ago but the expectations for current meeting recordings are much higher.
Best wishes,
AndySorry but there are no videos of the Winchester talks as it is not straightforward to get them recorded. The year we had videos was when we held a webinar instead due to the lockdown.
AndyTo my understanding there is nothing to indicate a return to the Steady State theory. There is a lot of evidence for a “big bang” style to the beginning of the observable universe, or at least changes to the universe with time that are very difficult for the Steady State theory to explain, such as the increase in the abundance of heavy elements with time. Even though the JWST results don’t quite match expectations, the evolution of galaxies with time can be seen by JWST and other observations. For example, star formation rates observed in galaxies peaked a few billion years ago. Also, quasar activity is observed to decrease with age, i.e. more common in more distance galaxies.
I believe they are still at the stage of analysing and gathering data. So it is too early to tell whether this can be resolved by adjusting model parameters rather than requiring a whole new model.This is on a list of changes that will be going to the BAA website developer. Unfortunately I do not have a time frame but I shall ask for this to be done sooner rather than later.
I’ve not delved sufficiently deeply into this aspect of spectroscopy to properly comment. However, I can see it is a detailed and interesting model.
Best wishes,
AndyJust to note, opting for a digital subscription doesn’t save the BAA money, as you pay more for the printed subscriptions to cover the printing and postage costs.
The developer has installed some updates, including an update to the spam filter. I don’t know if this will resolve the non-spam posts being flagged as spam, but there is a chance.
I noticed Alex Pratt had this problem in his reply on the composite images thread.
Best wishes,
AndyHi Steve,
You won’t be able to “release” them from spam. The spam filter is supposed to prevent spammers from posting spam, hence it will not allow the person posting to release their own messages. The spam filter is clearly being overly aggressive. This may improve with time as it learns, though it has been flagged as an issue with those who manage the website.
Best wishes,
AndyHi Steve,
I found two copies of your post in the spam folder. I released the second and deleted the first copy.
I am about to go on a short holiday so I will raise it with one or two people who know more about the forum on my return.
Best wishes,
AndyIt was perfectly clear when I got up just after 4am. Then as I slid back the observatory roof the first bit of cloud touched the Moon. I caught a glimpse of the Moon and Mars about a minute before the occultation, but the rest was clouded out.
Attachments:
The forum has a spam filter. I don’t think this is an especially useful feature for our website as only paid up BAA member accounts can post to the forum, and paying for an account is likely to deter spammers. However, it is always possible for an account to be hacked and then the spam filter could be useful.
If the timeout was weirdly connected to the anti-spam trigger, then the change to the timeout may have resolved the problem. Another possibility is the edits contained text, a link or file not in the original post that triggered the anti-spam block on the post.
If you see this again then report it and the website team can investigate.
Best wishes,
AndyHi Duncan,
One of the website admins has increased the timeout for post edits to 600 minutes (I think it was set to 5 minutes). It would be weird if that was triggering the spam filter, but you never know. Let us know if you find one of your posts disappearing again and we can investigate further.
Best wishes,
Andy
