[BAA Comets] Reporting Formats

Mon May 21 16:21:48 BST 2012

Hi Graham,

Have you looked at the Contributing observations section of the Comet section website
at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/ ? From there you can download a program which does
create files in the various formats. Was this the sort of thing you had in mind?

Perhaps there are wider questions to be asked e.g.;
- to which organisations do we wish to send the date - MPC, ICQ, TA, BAA, etc, etc?
- do we wish to submit observations to a Comet section on-line database?
- who do we want to view our data - members, other organisations, etc

I am a great believer in;
1) on-line databases which can be freely viewed by anyone or at least anyone who
first requests access to the database owner and which accept input directly from
observers.
2) Having a single format (or one for visual obs and one for CCD obs at most)
3) That what we have done in the past shouldn't necessarily tie us down ad infinitum

You wouldn't like to write the software for such a database would you if the powers
that be could be persuaded that it was a 'good thing' ?

Regards

Roger Dymock
Email: roger.dymock at ntlworld.com
Tel: 023 92647986
Skype: rjvdymock
MPC Observatory Code: 940

-----Original Message-----
From: comets-disc-bounces at britastro.org [mailto:comets-disc-bounces at britastro.org] On
Behalf Of Graham Relf
Sent: 19 May 2012 17:24
To: BAA Comets discussion list
Subject: Re: [BAA Comets] Reporting Formats

On 19/05/2012 13:14, Guy Hurst wrote:
> Dear Roger,
>
> On the face of it that does seem an obvious improvement and is new to this
> list. However it has been discussed so many times over the years and has
> produced endless debates which pre-date this discussion group by years. It
> is worth adding that I have received contributions in the past in at least
> TEN different formats as some countries do not adopt of the three mentioned.
>
>
>
> TA records go back a long way in the format used in the magazine and various
> organisations (other than the BAA) ask for our files from time to time. It
> is essentially a simplified listing which allows it to appear in the format
> used by 'The Astronomer' for the whole publication and conserves space,
> always at a premium.
>
>
>
> Certainly discussions many years ago with ICQ staff showed it was
> impractical to include all their detail in the TA listing and extracted
> parts would not be feasible in the mere FOUR days between the deadline and
> sending it to the printers.
>
>
>
> Finally we have at several times in the past contacted our comet
> contributors for their opinions and their majority views were it should
> remain unchanged except that we include narrative with the numerical listing
> to describe features which could not be catered for in the computer listing.
>
>
>
> Having discussed this with groups and TA subscribers in the past and with
> Jonathan able to adapt the TA files to his BAA Computer database for many
> years I do not wish to change it as far as TA is concerned.
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Guy
>
> TA Editor
>
> BAA Comet Section Deputy Director
>
>
>
> Message: 1
>
> Date: Sat, 19 May 2012 11:39:15 +0100
>
> From: "Roger Dymock"<roger.dymock at ntlworld.com>
>
> Subject: [BAA Comets] Reporting formats
>
> To:<comets-disc at britastro.org>
>
> Message-ID:<4C09EDE3392A4B2A83428E4DB8960FD4 at atlantis>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain;              charset="us-ascii"
>
>
>
> Why do we have three different formats for reporting visual observations
> i.e. TA, BAA and ICQ? Wouldn't it be less confusing to have just one?
>
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Roger Dymock
>
>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________
>
> Guy M Hurst, 16 Westminster Close, Basingstoke, Hants, RG22 4PP, England
>
> Tel/Fax (01256) 471074                                    Internet:
> guy at tahq.demon.co.uk
>
> Mobile: (07905) 332226             Personal WWW: http://www.guyhurst.co.uk
>
> Editor of The Astronomer
> http://www.theastronomer.org
>
> _________________________________________________________
>
>
>
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I don't know the details of the formats mentioned but there is a 
solution which may not have been available when the issue was previously 
discussed.

This may seem daft at first but please bear with me. The answer is to 
create another format!

Collect all of the required details (some of which will be optional) by 
using a form presented to the observer as an HTML page. That page can 
conveniently be on a web site but it might alternatively be used from 
the observer's own local disc. The important thing is that the data 
should initially be stored by the form as XML, with a schema we could 
specify. XML is easily converted to any other format (plain text, 
whatever) by using XSLT. Write a piece of XSLT for each of the existing 
formats to convert the XML data into that format in moments at the press 
of a button. (I am  assuming that the existing formats do have complete 
and unambiguous definitions of course.)

I'll volunteer to write the HTML form, the script behind it and the XSLT 
if someone will point me to the complete specification of each of the 
existing formats.

Graham
britastro.org/computing
www.grelf.net
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