[Aavso-photometry] [AAVSO-DIS] Airmass Planner web tool

[Michael Newberry]

See below

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Skiff" <bas at lowell.edu>
To: "James Bedient" <jbedient at gmail.com>; <aavso-discussion at mira.aavso.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 5:34 PM
Subject: Re: [AAVSO-DIS] Airmass Planner web tool

>     Some suggestions for similar pages:
[...]

> ---  try to minimize the number of little input windows, such that,
>     for instance, the RA/Dec can be cut-n-pasted from elsewhere
>     onto a single line (places such as SIMBAD, VizieR, the Goddard
>     SkyView utility etc allow this)

The reason for all the little windows is to make the form less brittle. They 
make it obvious what the format is, and this reduces the possible variations 
in the format entered. In any case, I've been up against the same issue you 
describe---many times, having to parse out time and position strings into 
the pieces. I've added a second alternative for the airmass planner which 
addresses this. Try option 3 on the webtools page at 
http://www.mirametrics.com and see if that makes this aspect easier for you.

Michael Newberry

>
> ---  on Brian Casey's page:  it's "equinox" not "epoch";
>     and why default to eq 1950 rather than 2000?
>
> ---  make a nomogram plot showing airmass as a function of
>     hour-angle and Declination (i.e. use these sites only once!);
>     pretty soon you get a gestalt, so you know roughly that if you
>     want to start observing at 2 airmasses on the Equator (say),
>     that's about 3.5 hours east (at Arizona's latitude).
>
>
> \Brian
>
>
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