[Kstars-devel] GSoC 2016 project proposal: KStars as a star chart generation service?

[Jasem Mutlaq]

Don't we already produce star charts? Or are you talking about making a
separate app just for this purpose?

Regards,
Jasem


On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 7:14 AM, Akarsh Simha <akarshsimha at gmail.com> wrote:

> Producing a star chart requires the following aspects of KStars:
>
> 1. Ability to load and hold RA/Dec/data of many catalogs (including the
> dynamic loading baggage of the USNO NOMAD catalog) in memory on a spatial
> index
> 2. Ability to project equatorial coordinates onto pixel values in a number
> of ways
> 3. Ability to draw the shapes corresponding to various types of deep-sky
> objects.
> 4. Ability to draw guides and overlays (esp. RA/Dec grid, constellation
> lines, constellation boundaries, milky way, FOV symbols)
> 5. Ability to pull data from the internet (eg: DSS images)
> 6. The star hopper?
>
> These aspects are not necessary:
>
> 1. Sun/Planet/Moon dynamics and drawing
> 2. All the extra modules (Observation Planner, Jupiter Moons tool... the
> list goes on)
> 3. Computation of Horizontal coordinates, atmospheric refraction,
> precession, nutation, aberration, proper motion corrections...
>
> So I'm wondering if it is possible to write a separate application that
> uses the relevant aspects of KStars to provide a star-chart generation
> service. The motivations for such a project are as follows:
> 1. A lot of manual effort has been put towards creation of observing
> guides by various amateur astronomers.
> 2. The only effort in automatic sky chart generation software has been
> http://pp3.sourceforge.net/ and it hasn't been developed for a long while
> now. It might be good to investigate what goes into using pp3.
> 3. We already have an expansive catalog system and other things that are
> very useful features.
> 4. A lot of amateur astronomers would benefit from a custom chart
> generation service (BTW, I'm not one of them), so this might be a way to
> expand the user base of KStars-technology.
>
> The dream is to then provide this as a service.
>
> Your thoughts?
>
> Regards
> Akarsh
>
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>


-- 
Best Regards,
Jasem Mutlaq
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