Re: bright tumbler, vulgar rockets, standard format
Bjoern Gimle (b_gimle@algonet.se)
Tue, 10 Feb 1998 07:06:24 +0100
>Irdm 8 r
>1 24797U 97020F 98036.07894622 +.00000216 +00000-0 +45970-4 0 00844
>2 24797 086.8938 049.7764 0250986 025.1246 336.1917 14.35879699039520
>Unless such vulgar names contain the name of the A object (or another),
>they are ambiguous. That is very annoying.
I agree.
>
>I find the RGO format somewhat annoying because it uses CC80, meaning I
>often see it on my screen as double spaced. I would much welcome input
>from users of positional OBS as to the desirability and importance of any
>specific format.
>
Although your mail program may lack a command to turn off formatting,
you probably save, or ought to save, observations to files, or append
to a single file. Even on an old DOS system, the List program by Vernon
Berg (v.7.7 1992 25kb) shows very long lines unbroken, and you can move
up, down and sideways, select pieces of a file and save to disk, etc, etc.
If you want to produce files with such awkward format, I can (probably)
create programs that will run on your DOS system.
I convert the mails I get from Russell and Peter Wakelin to Elcor (fitelem)
format. Disadvantages: order dependent station numbers.
No satellite ID on lines.
Advantages: Free-form, with space separated fields.
YY MM DD on each line.
Declination in degrees and decimals, RA is HH MM.mmm (I would have
preferred HH.hhhhh, which can be read from and entered to SkyMap
directly, or DDD.dddd, which is easily converted).
I can't understand why anyone wants HH MM SS.ss or DD MM SS.s formats -
they just require lots of conversions either when reading/plotting star maps,
interpolating between star positions, or any other computation, or reading/
plotting (SkyMap) screens.
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