[Kstars-devel] My vision for Prakash's GSoC project

[Prakash Mohan]

2009/5/8 Akarsh Simha <akarshsimha at gmail.com>:
> Hi
>
> I was just wanting to express my vision for Prakash's GSoC project.
>
> Of course, I don't think all of the stuff I've mentioned here might be
> completable within a GSoC, and I don't know how much of this stuff is
> in Prakash's proposal. IMO, we should try to go through the
> "important" independently implementable stuff in this list, making
> sure we have "mergeable code" at each stage, and finish as much as
> possible.
>
> Typically when one goes observing, I guess one needs the following
> things:
>
> 1. A list of objects to observe "tonight"
>   - Preferably with time stamps for best observing times
>   - Cache images of objects in the list from online source(s) for
>     comparison in field

Right, I think point 1 will be within my GSoC, will do that. Point
two, I dunno how easy/difficult it is to cache images and load them,
if its not too much work I can probably do that too.

>   - If community integration is done, cache community observing logs
>     for those targets

Not in my immediate plans. Maybe a good Season of KDE project.

> 2. A log to record observations made that night
>   - We must open an 'observing session' that has info about
>       + Location Details
>       + Weather, Sky Condition (Transparency, Seeing, Humidity...)
>       + Equipment (Telescopes, Eyepieces, Filters...)
>     [COMAST provides ways to log all this beautifully]
>   - We should have places to input observation logs about all
>     planned targets

Right, now Implementation of XML schema might be too hard for me, I'll
see if I can work on this. Plus this XML scheme is not Qt-XML
compatible right ?

>   - Normally, one ends up having some unplanned targets. So we need
>     the ability to add unplanned objects on the fly and store logs
>     about them as well

That's simple, you can add stuff to OL from anywhere :)

> 3. A nice integrated UI to plan your observing session
>   - One might like to have an "overall" observing wishlist of all
>     objects one is interested in observing, out of which, one selects
>     some objects for tonight.

Not difficult to implement. But how necessary is this ? This calls in
for a lot of new things to come.
1. the User has to Add a list of "Favourite" objects.
2. FindDialog should have a "Favourite" objects in the filter by type,
so the user can pick from this.
3. We have to integrate the "Favoutite" objects in What's up tonight.
Thats essentially what the user is interested in I guess.
But IMO these are very useful things to have.

>   - A nice UI to plan "tonight's" observing list from that selection
>     of objects, would include
>        + Altitude vs Time tool
:) Implemented.

>        + Sky Calendar tool [?]

Er, Akarsh, I'm waiting for your reports on this.

>        + An easily invokable almanac, complete with moon and twilight
>          info

Yeah, will be done. Nice thing to have.

>        + Ability to sort observing wishlist objects by magnitude,
>          type...



>        + Ability to automatically "suggest" an observing list for the
>          night [Far fetched?]

Isnt it what the WUT does ? We need to improve the WUT by adding
filter by magnitude. Plus that bit about "Favourite" objects, this
feature will be _Really_ useful. Can someone implement the filter by
magnitude in WUT Dialog ?

>        + A picture of the object

:) Refer to the reply on point 1.

>   - Ability to schedule future observing sessions in KOrganizer [?]

Whoa, thats another nice thing, but calls for a looooot of things to
be done. Definitely not in the scope of my GSoC.

> 4. Tools to "execute" an observing list:
>   - Load an observing list and order it by planned time of observation

Simple.

>   - Present details about the object - cached image, magnitude, NGC
>     description...

Simple.

>     [Also, community logs if community integration is done, retrieved
>     from cache]
>   - Present a log for the observer to log details about his
>     observations

Required, not really simple to implement. In fact one of the biggest
things to do.

>   - Possibly, ring (irritating) alarms when timestamps for objects
>     are hit :D

Lol. Not very simple. Or atleast I'm not aware of how to do this.

> In addition to these, it would be nice if KStars would offer to
> schedule observing sessions for astronomical events. For instance, if
> the conjunctions tool found an interesting conjunction, I should be
> able to schedule an observing session for that conjunction from within
> KStars.

Right, not a simple thing to do. This calls for KStars to run a lot of
tools on start and add a lot of objects to the OL. Not really a good
idea IMO.

> I haven't thought about these enough - particularly the implementation
> details. Maybe I should also have a look at some software that are
> meant for planning / logging observations like the one that Prakash
> mentioned in his GSoC proposal.

Okay.

> It'd be nice if others could pitch in their ideas on this.

Yeah, I'd like inputs from others, probably some help and support too :D

Regards,
Prakash


-- 
Prakash
Undergraduate Student
Department of Aerospace Engineering
Indian Institute Of Technology Madras