[BAA Comets] Fwd: COBS mail on ICQ import

[Padma Yanamandra-Fisher]

Hello, John,

This is really good news to see one repository for data. We (at PACA) are
working on something similar but to align with the NASA PDS standards, as
ultimately lots of collections of amateur data are starting to become
integrated. As is already known, there is such wealth of amateur legacy
data across many national repositories, that this start is definitely a
step in the right direction.

I hope that there is way to approach the integration of the data in the new
format that NASA PDS requires, and which I am working on for several of the
comet missions that have been supported by NASA (ISON, Siding Spring,
etc.).  In fact, I will be talking about this at the upcoming National
Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers in March 2016. Maybe we can
discuss this offline to see to align our efforts towards the same cause.

I am also interested in how to crowd-source the wealth of comet data for
various types of cometary activity. If there are members that are
interested in similar tasks, I would love to discuss these ideas further. I
do know that Richard Miles is interested in outbursting comets - he wrote a
nice summary on P/2010 Vi in our group on Outbursting Comets earlier today.
Now that comet has possibly framgmented further into two more fragments, C
and D, we are very interested in more observations of the comet.


Sincerley,
Padma

Padma A. Yanamandra-Fisher
Senior Research Scientist
Space Science Institute



On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 2:14 PM, Johan Warell <johan.warell at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear comet observers,
>
> We have now started importing observations into COBS from the ICQ
> historical archive dating from 2012. This archive contains around 130
> 000 observations of which the overwhelming majority
> ​was not
> present in the COBS database. Data imported from the ICQ archive can
> be identified with the ICQ## string where ## is the number of
> publication in the ICQ newsletter.
>
> At this time the import for comets 1P through 90P is complete (about
> ​40 000 observations) except for a small number of observations with
> unknown ICQ keys and observers.
> ​​When the import is complete we will
> ask you in the community for help with identifications.​
>
> As we have no country/association information for
> ​ICQ observers this
> will necessarily skew the statistics presented on the Statistics page
> ​as well as data selected by the association/country selector on the
> Analysis
> page. Many observers are now assigned the ICQ association. This can be
> corrected at any time with improved information provided by the
> community.
>
> Jure Zakrajsek has also added two new pages on the COBS web under the
> Help tab, which can be reached without logging in. One is a sortable
> list of comet observers, keys and observation count
> (http://www.cobs.si/help?page=observer_list), the other a page with
> COBS contact information (http://www.cobs.si/help?page=contact).
>
> We have also
> ​started sending out a monthly
> ​ e-mail with ​
> observations statistics
> ​for your particular
> ​astronomical ​
> association.Sign up for the report via your personal profile. Please assign
> your country and association identity at the same time.
>
> ​Please let us know if you have any questions, comments. or suggestions for
> improvements.
>
> ​With best regards,
>
> Johan Warell
> COBS Assistant Administrator
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