[Kstars-devel] Summer of KDE Project for KStars

[Alexey Khudyakov]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 05:28:22 -0600
Brad Rougeau <brad.rougeau at gmail.com> wrote:

>  Oops, sorry about that. I sent an uncompleted draft. Here's the full
> message:
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I've been talking to Prakash recently about a project I'm going to work on
> over the summer for KStars, and I just wanted to let everyone know what I'm
> doing. The basic idea is that a user will input the objects that they wish
> to see, a time period, the type of telescope they are using, and possibly
> some other data and the user will be presented with a list of the objects in
> the best order to view them. Some factors that will be used to create the
> ordered list will be the brightness of the object, rising and setting times
> for that object, closeness to other listed objects or bright objects that
> might hinder viewing, effective viewing horizon, the type of telescope being
> used, and any other data that the user has given as input. So far, I have
> looked at the KStars code a bit to see how all the objects are stored and
> started to look at how I can use the data already stored for each object and
> that sort of thing, but haven't started coding yet. I was hoping that you
> guys might be able to suggest some other factors that the user could input
> or that I might need to consider in creating the list. I'm definitely not an
> astronomy expert (mostly interested in this project for the coding
> involved) so any useful astronomy information that you think I might need
> for this project would also be very helpful. Also just interested to hear
> any comments you might have about this project.
> 
> Looking forward to working with you all,
> Brad Rougeau

Hello. 

This is an interesting idea it's quite difficult to implement. I think
it would be easier to write functions to calculate time when object is
available taking into account inaccessible areas on the sky. (Obscured,
light-polluted etc.) Telescope doesn't really matter. With one
exception zenith area is inaccessible for telescopes with azimutal
mount.

IMHO creation of a schedule is much more difficult task. And in this
case almost impossible. Probably creation of tool which shows time when
objects are avalaible and some tools for manual scheduling would be
very nice. Personally I'd like to have such tool.


Also currently data model in kstars is under major rewamping by Victor
Carbune. You may want to see recent discussions on the list and in
Victor's blog[1].

[1] http://karbonix.blogspot.com

-- 
Alexey Khudyakov <alexey.skladnoy at gmail.com>