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[vsnet-obs 2396] Re: VS Obs March 10

Dear Gary,

>  It appears from the latest VSOLJ CV Circular that the following
>  observations were not received by some, so I send them again.
>  Apologies to those who did receive them!

   The system received your first mail without a trouble.  I have looked
for the reason why your observations were neglected in compiling VSNET
CV Circular (Mar. 15 version), and found this was caused by a slight
difference of the format from that you had been using.

   As have been announced, VSNET CV Circulars were complied using a computer
program to extract the observation data as automatically as possible, which
is a key technology in providing the real-time light curves in the VSNET
Home Page, and updated informtion to the observers even when the managers
are absent.  In addition to the recommended format (for a detail, see the
corresponding sectin of the Home Page), we have tried to prepare observer-
specific extraction programs for those observers who have been regularly
contributing in their fixed formats.

   The reason why the system missed your Mar. 10 observations was that the
column of the magnitudes was placed by 1 character to the left (the system
tests the position of the decimal point) as compared to your previous
reports.  So the system did not recognize your data lines as they should be.
It would not be a very difficult task to loosen the rule in recognition,
but such treatments may also introduce some ambiguity which may lead
to include non-observation lines.  If you wish to continue using the
Mar. 10 format, we had better make some revisions to the recognition
program.  We would like to hear whether we should do so, and would be
grateful if you understand the limitations of our system in compiling
the data.  Data in free formats may drop.  [This "position of the column"
problem does not occur in the recommend format.  This format uses space
characters _only_ as field separators, which makes unique recognition
possible.  The existence of different number of space characters in one
field (e.g "3C273" has none, "And KV" has one) tends to make the pattern
recognition difficult.  We can recognize them as object names because
we know them, but it is a really difficult task to teach computers without
such knowledge to do as we do.]

Regards,
Taichi Kato (VSNET sub-manager)