Planetariums & Observatories??

This link may be of interest to you: http://www.mos.org/doc/1001

Ray

Hi Ray - thanks! However, I did not seem to locate a POI or CSV file -

but the file was interesting notwithstanding! I work in DC at an Observatory, and do get to Boston often-

best,
Paul

I may try to make one ...
Paul

Hi Paul,
If you click on the faq and help tab on this page you'll learn how to make a poi. It's actually very easy to do. If you need help or want me to create a poi just give me the addresses you want in the file and I'll do it for you..

Ray

P.S. I have been to the Boston Museum of Science a few times but not in many years. It was good back then and I bet it's even better now!

Hi Ray - I might just take you up on that... I am somehow running into snags trying it myself...

Looking for search words "observatory" and "planetarium" and "astronomical" in the search of GE...

Or is that liable to be too big a CSV file? I imagine there are less than 100 observatories in the US...

wonder if one could do the same thing from Google Maps online??

then there's the case where I put a layer in Google Earth (of a regional DC-MD light pollution map overtop the terrain) - THAT would be cool if I could get THAT into my c530!

Thanks in advance!!

Paul
Paul

Paul I did a search in Google and found this link: http://www.draco.scsu.edu/otherpltm.html

Ray

and check out these:

http://www.aas.org/publications/baas/v37n1/vol_37toc.html

and

http://www.aip.org/baas/vol_35toc.html

best,
Paul

these:

http://www.vilspa.esa.es/astroweb/newmaster.html

http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/astroweb/telescope.html

http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/astroweb/telnotspace.html

Paul

well I got 100 or so into here:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/379

Paul

Exactly 100 POIs!

I downloaded the file, and it looks pretty good. PoiEdit inserted an extra comment line at the top. (It could cause troubles with some software, so I removed it.)

Do you have a picture you'd like me to add to the file?

JM

Paul how did you get that done so quickly? I never expected a result like that so fast..

Great work,
Ray

Thanks - here's how I speedily did it...

I did a search for observatories astronomy etc in Google Earth Plus, then dragged these many runs & results down to the favorites. Then messed around to find the correct KML file that the Fav's saved as, - then opened with POIEdit which I found per the FAQ, edited out dupes and non-astro lines (tho I see a couple slipped thru I missed; and it still lacks many of course - all to fix later) - and then saved as a Garmin CSV, for upload here...

The procedure is pretty sweet - albeit I am having minor problems with my new c530; seems to allow (incorrectly?) just two subcategories under custom POIs under Extras (I posted this issue elsewhere)...

Best,
Paul

I think a couple sneaked in incorrectly which I need to repair; and eventually add more...

thanks for the POIEdit fix....

Sure - where do I send the picture? You could clip the one off of this outdated bio:
http://homes.jcu.edu.au/~jc152707/PDS_Auto_Bio_Academic.pdf

..or I could send a cooler one From flyin'...

Paul

as you notice, found the place to upload a pic...

Paul

Wow - found a place I think I can use after manipulation, cut out and reorder some colums...

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/ObsCodes.html

Would this be best made into a table in Word, then exported to Exel? Or what? Thanks!

I also tried to manipulate a locations.txt file in a planetarium program I have, but they reverse the east and west longitude, making flipping a pain... ton of info in the file, but all "buried"... if anyone wants to stab at that txt file, holler and I can email it...

meanwhile, I look at:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/ObsCodes.html
more, and it's annoying me - the top says, "The following list gives the observatory code, longitude (in degrees east of Greenwich)", so when I look down the list, for example, at line 7:

Code Long. cos sin Name
007 2.3371 0.65947 +0.74922 Paris

and when I get to a US (western hemi) Observatory, for example, line 793:

Code Long. cos sin Name
786 282.9345 0.77906 +0.62487 U.S. Naval Obs., Washington (since 1893)

So it seems I need to, for west hemi sites, do a 360-Long., when Long. > 180 in the list at the site..

So, I presume I can make that happen in excel - right? Anyone know an easy way?

Many thanks!!
Paul

I haven't come across this format before. For the longitude, you could use a formula like this in Excel:

=if(LONGITUDE<=180, LONGITUDE, LONGITUDE-360)

Substitute the cell address (e.g., B4) for the word LONGITUDE in the formula shown above. Then, copy it down to the rest of the column. Then use Copy and then Past Special / Values to convert the formula cells to values

What it does is this:

if the LONGITUDE is less than or equal to 180, use it. Otherwise, use the LONGITUDE - 360.

It's been quite a while since I had trig, so I don't know how the cos and sin values are used in this situation.

JM

apparently it's:

phi' = atan(S/C) where S=rho cos phi' C=rho sin phi'

per

http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/tops/latlong.html

I tried working with this formula in Excel and wasn't able to get anywhere.

When I read through the hawaii.edu page, it appears this formula is for converting geodetic to geocentric coordinates. If I read the page correctly, I think we need the reverse.

I found another page that describes how to convert geocentric to geodetic coordinates, but it looks much more complicated (and way over my head without a lot of studying).

www.mathworks.com/ ... geocentrictogeodeticlatitude.html

yep seems like a ton of work

I wish I could get inside the back end here:

http://www.eso.org/~ndelmott/obs_sites.html

I could make kmls - one by one....

I just found this site at work (in another dept)

that answrs most of the mail - just a matter of formatting now...

http://asa.usno.navy.mil/SecJ/Observatories.html

JM -

Of the two sites above, I think I will use the ESO site over the usno one - it could be more 'elegant' to batch-attack and modify a full dataset... but the ESO dataset puts the sites in .kmz format (albeit one-by-one). The MOST elegant thing would be for me to go into work monday and ask that Dept to batch file me the whole thing in the csv fashion LOL!

So I am picking each observatory, saving as map1, map2, etc... then appending them all to a single kmz. which poiedit turns into a csv of course... Sorta how they built the pyramids, one block at a time

P

For those interested I updated the csv file just now, at:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/379

Up from 100 POIs to I think around 300 (hard-won) POIs - was not easy to find alot of the info...

It is admittedly biased toward the DC-MD-VA area, but has astronomy sites across the nation, and a number of major or historical observatories around the globe.

It's probably more biased toward professional level astronomy but still has a number of amateur sites in my area, and alot of college-level observatories (many of which offer open houses). Many of the pro observatories offer tours...

I have yet to include planetariums. IMO, most of these are similar in presentation, and are good for very basic entertainment. If I make a general amateur only csv someday I might include planetariums, and a comprehensive accounting of clubs, club observing sites, etc, rolled into one...

I also hope to build one for national star parties... then one for sled-dog mushing and husky sites, before that...

Paul

typo : almost 400 POIs...

This is turning out to be a pretty interesting file. Thank you for sharing!

JM

Hi all,
Just added (1) a slightly corrected .csv to the astronomy (primarily observatory) POIs, then (2) added a POI file of American Star Parties & Villages... This one was a real bugger to collect many man-hours, as some of the locations were not at all easy to find... but here they are....

Paul

(2)
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/657

and the orginal (1):
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/379

JM -
I forget - how do I upload a picture with the csv file again?

Thanks!
Paul

Pictures are still a manual process. I've posted the one you sent via email. Thanks.

JM

ok - thanks!

Paul