Hello Jeff, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
Good Morning Campers! I haven't participated directly in the Astronomy SIG even though I'm listed in its membership. But I have been thinking about long term opportunities for the SIG to be break out star of the Fedora Project.
Good to hear someone else on this list ;)
So let me catch you all up to speed on a couple of long term ideas that I've been leveraging my Board title to have conversations about. 1) open source amateur telescope network Given the right telescope and ccd camera hardware arrangements, we could provide a completely self-contained Fedora based software setup for remote instrument control, with turn-key instructions on how to get an instrument up and in the network. To that end, I have a local high school teacher who has a small grant to put a remotely controlled scope together for his classes to use. It looks like we'll be using a apogee usb camera and an 8 inch meade telescope. Hardware I'm sure we won't have a problem providing support for in Fedora. A filter wheel hasn't been selected yet. Given that hardware what is the best control and image capture software we have in Fedora right now that could be used for instrument control, tracking and image collection? I'm thinking Kstars makes for the best interface for an educational target, but what do i know. Can we do guidestar tracking out of the box with this camera and scope, or would we need a secondary imager? I'm not sure kstars actually does image based guidestar tracking. I haven't even thought about focus control yet. I would imagine we'll need to homebrew something. Whatever we end up doing, I want it to be an easy to follow blueprint so I can get another school to do it next year so we can link multiple instruments together for student use. And if all possible I want to be able to produce a Fedora branded live image with the necessary software to run the instrument.
This is a good idea. Actually, I has been working on one similar running project. It's www.skylive.it, the first goal is to include the client in Fedora and EPEL. Anyone interested in that? It needs few python modules and I count on full cooperation with upstream from our side.
2) Radio Lunar/Solar Bounce HF Groundstations What would it take to run a network of volunteer groundstations to participate in a coordinated lunar/solar bounce HF experiment? I've run across an experimental opportunity for long baseline interferometry that could make use of a dispersed network of groundstations, and I'd like to see if we can build that network through the Fedora project. Obviously it's going to require hardware that most people don't have...but licensed HAM operators might have. I'm talking with potential researchers now to organize the science proposal. But we also need to stat having a conversation inside Fedora about whether there is enough interest in participating in a network of volunteer stations. I've talked to a couple of people in the HAM SIG, but if the Astronomy SIG wants to help make it happen that would be keen as well. Now that gnuradio is in in the repo, what else would be needed in Fedora to do something coordinated? I'm sure we have the necessary software to make use of gps time syncing when groundstations have access to a local gps time source. One of the goals here is a turn-key live image that can be used as the automated groundstation control. I'm not sure if it will end-up being brandable Fedora without special permission from the Board. it might have to ship some configuration information for data collection specifics that won't be a part of the Fedora repository.
As soon after Fedora 9 release, I would like to start glue all pieces together for the Fedora Astronomy Spin. Fedora 10 announces to be good quality, let's make sure we stand for same.
-jef
I'm very happy to have you on this project Jeff. -- Marek Mahut https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Astronomy/ Fedora Project http://www.jamendo.com/
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