Fri, 08/09/2019 - 21:02
AAVSOnet seems to be operational, but there is zero program status information available: that is, what stars are being observed, how many observations have been made, telescope down time, etc. As usual, this requires software. However, I have a PhD in astronomy while I worked professionally as a software engineer. I don't have that much database experience, but plenty of Python, Java, C# experience. I would be willing to write some software.
Dr Lee Hunt McDonald/LHM71/MLHA/dharmac
Hi Dr. McDonald,
Thank you for your interest.
You can find nightly thumbnail target field images from each site here: http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/
A periodic AAVSOnet update, usually quarterly, can be found on the forum, for example, here: https://www.aavso.org/aavsonet-status-2019-08-01
Does this provide the information you are interested in?
Mike
Hi Lee,
Cool - a programmer! There are always plenty of things to do with this network. As you mention, I give the operational status of the various sites, but say nothing about what is being observed. As you also mention, this is primarily due to a lack of time and software programs to gather the data and present it in a reasonable manner. We could do much better than we have!
Let me talk to the rest of the admin group and see what tasks make sense for your participation. You certainly have the right skill set!
Arne
I looked at the web site that nmi/Mike specified. The data was impressive, however, even a simple analysis indicates some problems : (mystery telescopes and telescopes not currently generating images):
AAVSOnet operational telescopes (with images) ::
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/bsm_berry/bsm_berry_190802_images/
some of these images have light bands across them. What causes this?
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/bsm_hamren/bsm_hamren_190730_images/index1.html
all good
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/bsm_hq/
only to 2017/08
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/bsm_nh2/bsm_nh2_190805_images/index1.html
lots of banding
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/bsm_nm/bsm_nm_190802_images/index1.html
all good
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/bsm_s/bsm_s_190719_images/
only to 2019/07-21;; images good
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/coker30/
only to 2016-09
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/kotnik/kotnik_190609_images/
just one day; nice images
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/oc61/oc61_190807_images/
all good
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/sro/sro_190705_images/
only to 2019/07-05; MONSOON images good
http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org/tmo61/tmo61_190228_images/
only to 2019/03; bunch of images with bad tracking
<<<<<<<<< no APASS imagery? (too many images)
Summary ::
only bsm_berry and tmo61 had bad image problems
bsm_hq, bsm_s, coker30, sro, and tmo61 are not currently producing images????
<<< sro is off due to Arizona monsoon season
https://aavso.org/aavsonet#scopestatus ::
lists bsm scopes :: bsm_ar?gentina, bsm_s, bsm_berry, bsm_hamren, bsm_nm
^^ unclear name;no images ^^no images
operational from above :: bsm_s, bsm_berry, bsm_nm, bsm_hq, bsm_nh2
lists other scopes :: sro50, tmo61, oc61
operational from above :: sro, tmo61, oc61, coker30, kotnik
^^ two diff names ^^ >> ^^ not documented at https://aavso.org/aavsonet#scopestatus
I would prefer a weekly/yearly summary of image totals by telescope, and for variables:
Var names, start date, end date, total images
If I can get FTP access to http://images.aavsonet.aavso.org then a simple Python scan would generate this information; otherwise it involves HTTP hacking, which may be trickier. Most of the software time might be wrapped up in web presentation of the results!
Thanks
Lee/LHM71/MLHA/dharmac
Hello Dr McDonald
I'm the operator of BSM Berry, in Perth, Western Australia. Some images in the latter part of this night were affected by some light cloud passing overhead - and I suspect those are the images you noticed.
These types of issues (and other issues) are normally detected and noted by the image review process, as they will be in this case. Images being affected by clouds is a relatively common part of imaging the night sky unfortunately!
It doesn't seem like you are very familiar with the image reviewer process in AAVSONet, which is all done by volunteers, as is almost all the other operations of AAVSONet. And as volunteers we might not all have the time required to get everything perfect. So we would always welcome additional help, that's for sure :)
Arne's recent AAVSONet status posting which Mike mentioned above will also contain the reasons behind some of your other comments.
Cheers,
Greg