[vsnet-chat 2863] Virtual observatory

[Rudolf Novak <rudolfn@sci.muni.cz>]

Dear colleagues,

I'd like to share with you the project I have in my head for some time
and right now I think is the right time to start to speak about it.
Please read following lines and if you'll be interested, don't worry to
contact me. 

The whole idea of this project is developed by colleagues of mine (Lenka
Sarounova, Ondrejov Observatory & Ludek Vasta, Prague VSE). They are
minor planet observers and in Ondrejov there is a serious research about
those small bodies. They also try to manage some group of observatories
world-wide to focus on same targets to get as precise results as
possible. 

Do you think it's the same system as have variable star observers in
VSNET, CBA and so on? I think so!

So I'd like to introduce you the project VIRTUAL OBSERVATORY which will
be functionaly quite same as mentioned system. Observer wherever in the
world with internet connection (I suspcet that all of you have this
connection when you can read this mail :) will connect to a specified
site and login as registered observers. Be registered means, that one
can switch on current status of his observatory / telesopce (sleeping,
eating, drinking beer, observing) select a weather (clear, 50% cloudy,
snow,...), select a target (DV UMa, deep sky, comets, ...) and can
atcivate his "account" for current night. Other observers than can catch
him via contact info (it can be mail, icq, GMS, phone,...) or follow
same target as he is. In some simple chat (message board) each of them
can leave a message. At morning he set again his status and can go home.

This part should be very interesting in cases of world-wide campaigns or
for observers who are not decided about the target which one to follow.
I think that there is a lot of guys with a CCD who make just some
deep-sky in great night just because they don't know that they can
contribute to a serious research work. If this Virtual observatory will
be done and anounced in some magazine (as Sky & Telescope) it can brings
more observers to variable stars or generaly to some serious work.

Second part of this system is private archive of observations. You can
store there info about nights you observe and also whole datasets.
You'll select if the data ASCII file is public or private and then
you'll have very good back-up for any case. (all your storages are dead
and you don't loose most important data!) Believe me, I'v lost my HDD
just when we finished long-term photometry runs on GK Per last outburst,
I did about ten or 13 nights of whole-night photometry and just before I
recorded data to a CD my disk went out and I was done. If I had just
ASCII outputs somewhere I should make just some analyzis...

Of course, there are a lot of variations for this, you can think about
it and if some of you'll be interested we can start.

Some info about the system. It's no problem for me to develop server
like this. In fact, I can build in as non-commercial (so no banners :)
and for free of course. Right now I'm doing system like this for my
private usage but if someone else would like to join, I'd be very happy
to rewrite scripts and develop free system for everybody. Right now I
can use also good-to-rember URL like

     observatory.astronomy.cz
       variables.astronomy.cz

or xxx.astronomy.cz which is domain registered by me some time ago. (not
so expensive to pay without commerce on a server in fact).

As I wrote somewhere above. In my opinion this one is very good idea
(not mine :) and thetrend in astronomy amateurs/proffesional
collaboration is to grow to world-wide as visible in CBA or VSNET pages
where presented results give 1000x better accuracy than single
observation made by single observer at a time.

If you'd like to speak about this, I'd be very happy. Same as I'd be
very happy for any ideas what to add. The result (first functional
version) can be done in a week or so and then we can try some
preliminary usage to make it as good as possible.

Sorry for so many words...

Rudolf

************
Rudolf Novak
Nicholas Copernicus Observatory (http://vsnet.sci.muni.cz/obsbrno)
web: http://codel.astronomy.cz
******************************

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