telescope-net.com

Recent changes to SAROS or telescope-net

Removed expiry of most user logins and accounts, as this was bothering me no end and is not strictly necessary at the moment. [2009-Jan-10::Roy]

Used the software infrastructure developed for the "Moon rise and set" module to implement rise and set for planets, sun and twilights (civil, nautical and astronomical). These data will appear on a new version of the "telescope status" page. [2008-Dec-18::Roy]

Number of changes and additions related to the new "Moon rise and set" Google module. [2008-Dec-11::Roy]

Number of changes related to Google Earth links. KML page now linked from website front page. Random images at top of MYACCOUNT pages and "latest image" iGoogle module now display large versions of the image upon clicking, rather than KMZ archive data. [2008-Nov-04::Roy]

Bugfix to "Sun, moon and planets" iGoogle module. The spelling of the constellation Ophiuchus was incorrect. [2008-Nov-04::Roy]

User may alter the number of items displayed per page using their "preferences" page. [2008-Oct-08::Roy]

Added pagination to pages displaying (potentially long) lists. These include listing requests and images. [2008-Sep-20::Roy]

Cancelling a request now goes via an "are you sure?" page. If the request being cancelled is a member of a group, the "are you sure?" page will also provide the option of cancelling all remaining requests in the group. [2008-Sep-15::Roy]

Updated "multiple image" request submission page, to include J2000.0 coordinate specification as well as catalog-based target specification. Also added user-selectable lunar elongation restriction and "never observe when the Moon is above the horizon" restriction. Fixed some minor logical errors in page display. [2008-Sep-14::Roy]

Added "nth time lucky" rule handling to reduction pipeline, just like for ACP pointing update requirement. [2008-Sep-14::Roy]

Minor bugfix to the "request chooser" webpage, relating to searches which telescope managers can perform. [2008-Sep-13::Roy]

Finally, one can now input J2000.0 coordinates to a request submission page! The system has understood J2000.0 since inception, but I simply hadn't gotten around to adding these methods of submitting requests to the "new" website. [2008-Sep-13::Roy]

Fixed up some table column-related errors in the HTML of various pages. [2008-Sep-12::Roy]

Aquired images are flagged as good if, first, at least one point-like source is detected in the image which has a (gaussian) peak of at least 5 times the image RMS noise estimate. The point-like sources are automatically extracted as a part of the data reduction pipeline. Second, an image will be flagged as good if the dynamic range appears to be high enough. Both the RMS noise and dynamic range are estimated from the high dynamic range compressor, which attempts to produce robust estimates of these quantities as a part of its work. Again, this forms a part of the reduction pipeline. [2008-Sep-10::Roy]

Now allowing the system to flag an analysed image as "bad". Hitherto we've done this by requesting ACP pointing updates, which will fail if e.g. we happened to hit a cloud. Coming up with a universally-applicable ruleset to differentiate between bad and good images may prove to be an interesting exercise... [2008-Sep-08::Roy]

MyFlats released, allowing flat fields to be injected, imaged, processed and the results applied to observations from any particular telescope. [2008-Sep-07::Roy]

Bugfix for zip archiving, affecting the circumstances in which a link to such a zip archive is displayed for request groups. [2008-Sep-07::Roy]

New email policies introduced, of particular relevance to observation groups. Policy may be changed from preferences page. [2008-Sep-06::Roy]

Preferences page now available, linked from "my account" page. [2008-Sep-06::Roy]

Provided links to download FITS images and observation logs in a Zip archive, both for individual requests and for request groups. [2008-Sep-04::Roy]

Tweaked the email notification system such that submission of request groups doesn't spam the requestor's email address with one notification email per group member. [2008-Aug-22::Roy]

Modified Signup page, to verify email address and accept redemption codes with or without the canonical dashes. Also fixed bug re allocation of credits upon signup. [2008-Aug-21::Roy]