Observation Manager 0.820 is released

Good news everyone!

Observation Manager 0.820 is finally released. Get the latest version on the projects page at:
http://observation.sourceforge.net/en/

Happy downloading

Dirk

Controlling Cartes du Ciel/Skychart from Observation Manager

With Observation Manager 0.820 a new extension is introduced called Skychart. This new extension connects Observation Manager with Cartes du Ciel / Skychart (Version 3.x). To use this extension, all you need to do is make sure you’ve the Skychart extension installed in OM and Cartes du Ciel 3.x running.

With that you should already be able to show observations (or objects) from Observation Manager in Cartes du Ciel / Skychart. Just selected an observation (or an object) in Observation Manager, do a right click on the entry and select Skychart -> Show in Skychart and Cartes du Ciel will move to the corresponding object.

Show observation in Cartes du Ciel

Cartes du Ciel moved to observation target

In case this doesn’t work for you, you might need to check configurations.

In Observation Manager go to menu Extra->Preferences select Skychart tab and see the current connection details to Cartes du Ciel.

Observation Manager Skychart settings

The values set here must be equal to the settings in Cartes du Ciel.

To check the Cartes du Ciel settings go to menu Setup->System select Server tab and see the current connection settings.

Cartes du Ciel Server settings

OpenAstronomyLog 2.0 released

Time to celebrate!

OpenAstronomyLog

OpenAstronomyLog 2.0 (formerly known as COMAST XML schema) has officially been released today!

What does that mean? With <OAL> 2.0 more applications using the same logging format for their observation logs,
making it easier to migrate and compare data between those applications.
Also <OAL> 2.0 introduces an extenstion mechanism, that makes sure <OAL> can easily expanded if required to cover
even more astronomical topics. (Currently <OAL> 2.0 supports DeepSky-, SolarSystem-, VariableStars-observations and some rudimental CCD imaging support)
And the best: Observation Manager 0.820 will completly support all <OAL> extensions!

For more infos see: http://groups.google.com/group/openastronomylog

Using your own custom stylesheet for HTML export

For exporting your observations into HTML, Observation Manager uses XSL-Transformation. The default style sheet used for this might not perfectly fit to your webpage, or you simply don’t like the transformed output. Therefore with OM 0.820 you can make use of your own XSL style sheet.

Create new folder for your custom XSL style sheet

Open your Observation Manager installation directory and goto the /xsl folder. Underneath this folder you can see the default style sheet used for transformation called /oal2html. Now place a second folder besides the existing one, e.g. /myWebpageStyle. Now add your XSL file to this folder. The XSL file must be called transform.xsl (or in case you’ve one XSL file per language, name the files e.g. transform_de.xsl, transform_en.xsl and so on)

(The best way to start with your own XSL file might be by copying an existing one from /oal2html folder.)

Now start Observation Manager, and select Preferences out of the menu bar.

In the General tab, see the XSL style entry. Select your custom style here (the name shown in the preferences dialog is taken from the folder you’ve created underneath the /xsl folder.

Select your custom XSL style sheet

You’re done! Next time you’ll export your observation data into HTML, Observation Manager will use your XSL style sheet for transformation.

What’s new in 0.820?

It’s been a while since the last OM release 0.717 was released and during the last month we’ve implemented quiet a bunch of features making Observation Manager even more comfortable and user friendly. Here’s a (incomplete) list of what’s new in 0.820:

• 

  OpenAstronomyLog

  The first major change from 0.717 to 0.820 is most probably one, you won’t notice at a first glance, but which might be important to you someday in the future. The open XML data format which OM used ’til 0.717 (COMAST) is renamed to OpenAstronomyLog (<OAL>). By that name change the version jumped from 1.7 to 2.0. <OAL> remains open and free and there’ll more logging/planning apps joining the standard (see box on the right).
  For Observation Manager users this migration from COMAST to <OAL> is done automatically by using OM 0.820, so you don’t need to worry about anything, OM does all for you.

• It’s now possible to log variable star observations. Also OM 0.820 has a AAVSO export function, that allows you to export your variable star observations into the common AAVSO (visual) format, ready to upload your observation via the AAVSO website. Also OM 0.820 can plot light curves from your variable star observations.
  

  Variable star light curve

• Several new object/target types are introduced: Star, Multiple star, variable star, cluster of galaxies.
• Extension (Plugin) concept introduced. Observation Manager can be customized to your needs, starting from 0.820 on. In the complete package Observation Manager supports Deep-Sky, Solar system, imaging and variable star observations. In case you just need one of those feature, you can download the Observation Manager base package and simply plugin the extension you need. This saves disk space and keeps Observation Manager slim and easy to use.  (Adding more extension is for sure possible at a later point in time
• Search in catalogs. Search in the e.g. Messier catalog for NGC 2422 and find M47
• HTML export can now use custom XSL style sheets
• Increase startup times
• Major performance optimization in Save function. Saving large files is now up to several hundred times faster than in prior versions.
• Log your observations in Observation Manger during night by using OMs night vision UI.
  

  Observation Manager in night vision mode

• Tons of bugfixes and minor usability improvements