[TDA_wg] Outline of discussion at Hotwired IV

[Arnold Rots]

But if you use a date, use ISO-8601.
And consider TT, rather than UTC.

  - Arnold

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Arnold H. Rots                                          Chandra X-ray
Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                   tel:  +1 617 496
7701
60 Garden Street, MS 67                                      fax:  +1 617
495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138
arots at cfa.harvard.edu
USA
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
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On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 6:40 PM, Allen W. Shafter <awshafter at gmail.com>
wrote:

> This seems like a sensible solution/compromise to me.
>
> I agree that a longer, formal name of the form [survey][UT date]:[RA, Dec
> in J2000] with both temporal and spatial info will be important for machine
> handling, and for transient follow-up (nice to have date of discovery in
> addition to position readily available). For more informal reference, a
> link for translation to a shorter name as suggested would also be useful. I
> don't think a single naming scheme can be satisfactory for all situations.
>
> -Allen
>
>
> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 2:20 PM, George Djorgovski <
> george at astro.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
>> Folks, for what it is worth, we went through the naming of events with
>> the PQ survey, and continued with CRTS.  Since events - as opposed to
>> objects with which they may be associated - are spatiotemporal things, we
>> though that the naming should reflect that.  We came up with a clunky
>> solution:
>>
>> [survey][UT date]:[RA, Dec in J2000]
>>
>> For example: CSS150520:132803+085623 is an event that was observed by the
>> CSS survey on UT May 20, at those coordinates.  Given the typical surface
>> density of transients, that is plenty unambiguous, and obvious extensions
>> of a precision (time or coordinates) could be added if needed.
>>
>> This format was designed to reveal the useful information, as opposed to
>> the now prevalent XYZ15abc format, which hides most of the information, for
>> example “can I observe it tonight?".  However, it is too clunky to say, so
>> conversationally we would say, e.g., “we observed 150520”, because there
>> aren’t too many interesting ones that get a lot of attention, but always
>> use a full designation in the publications.  On the other hand, XYZ15abc is
>> very easy to pronounce and remember.
>>
>> Even with the sources (not events) a common practice is to use nicknames,
>> e.g., we would say “we observed SDSS 1435” instead of its full official
>> name, SDSS J143507.47+132117.5, and in a given context everyone involved
>> would know what we mean.
>>
>> I guess we could have both, with a translation easy to find somewhere,
>> e.g.,
>> CSS15pqr = CSS150520:132803+085623, which then may also get additional
>> names, e.g., = SN2015xy
>> The long names are for the computers, the short ones for the humans, more
>> or less.
>>
>> It is probably safe to say that whatever the IAU decides, astronomers
>> will do whatever they please…
>>
>> Cheers, George
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> TDA_wg at timedomainastronomy.net
>> https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/tda_wg
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Allen W. Shafter, Chair
> Department of Astronomy
> San Diego State University
> San Diego, CA 92182-1221
> Ph: (619) 594-6170, Fax: (619) 594-1413
> http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/faculty/shafter/
>
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>
>
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