Jakub Černý, Jure Zakrajšek

„Comet Siding Spring Close Encounter with Mars Observers“ WorkshopAugust 11, 2014

AGENDA

• Project description• Technologies, database structure• Webpage design• COBS usage– Submission of observations– Observation analysis• COBS Observations statistics

COBS – Project description

• First version of COBS database in Slovenia created in 2002. 35 visually observed comets during 2002-2008.

• A renewed COBS website was designed in 2010 and first introduced on MACE 2010 (Višnjan) conference.– The new site is opened to comet observers all over the world– Submission of observations done with easy web-form – It includes visual and CCD observations– Observational data is displayed in strict ICQ format– It offers real time graphical display and analysis of observations

• Currently maintained by Team of Observatory Črni Vrh

COBS - Technologies

• COBS is based on:– Linux server (Ubuntu)

– Apache web server

– Webpage is written in python programing language

– Database uses PostgreSQL database server

COBS – Database structure

• Database is based on three main tables:– Comets table– Users table– Observations table

• Tables are linked by item id in observations view

• Special table for news section

COBS WEBPAGE DESIGN

COBS – Webpage design

• Welcome page:– Recent observations

COBS – Webpage design

• Recent observations– Report designed the same way as

ICQ Recent Comet Brightness

– Report is generated for observations of the last 30 day

COBS – Webpage design

• Welcome page:– Recent observations

– Current light curve

– Current comet magnitudes(by Jonathan Shanklin, BAA)

– Comet Observing Planner

COBS – Webpage design

• Comet observation planer– Generates a list of visible comets

for a observing session– For registered users the list is

calculated for location in their user-profile

COBS – Webpage design

• Welcome page:– Recent observations

– Current light curve

– Current comet magnitudes(by Jonathan Shanklin, BAA)

– Comet Observing Planner

– Latest comet news

COBS – Webpage design

• News:– Currently more than 210 news

articles issued

SUBMISSION OF OBSERVATIONS

Registration• User is required to register to the

COBS website in order to access the submit forms and analysis page– Registration is done by filling a web-

form– Passwords are encrypted and stored

in the database– Observer ICQ code is required• If observer does not have an

official ICQ code, a temporary code is assigned to the user and should be used for observation submission.

– Location information is used by Comet Observation Planer

COBS – Usage

Submitting observations• Observation are submitted using

web-based forms– Easy to use (can be prefilled if

selected in the user-profile)– Users are guided what information to

input (detail explanation describing each field)

– Each field is validated according to ICQ format rules (python script)

– Errors are shown to the user

• Two type of submission forms– Single observation form (unexperienced users)– Multiple observation form (experienced users)

• Observations inserted in ICQ format

COBS – Usage

OBSERVATION ANALYSIS

COBS – Observation analysis

Data analysis• Database is sufficient to provide

accurate real-time comet light curves– An example, COBS collected 174

observations for recent comet C/2014 E2 (Jacques)

• Analysis section allows to do quick analysis of comets in selected time span

• Web interface offers limited management of web-based analysis.

• Data are available for download just by one click for further analysis

COBS – Observation analysis

Data export and further analysis• Because of full compatibility with

ICQ data format: – data exported from COBS database are fully

compatible with software used for their analysis

– format is familiar to all generations of comet researchers

• Data can be used for:– Description of comet brightness evolution– Calculation of comet survival prospect– Analyses of outbursts and unexpected

fading– Water production rates and nuclear mass

estimates

OBSERVATIONS OVERVIEW

COBS – Observation statisticsTotal:Number of observers: 141 of 329Number of associations: 7 of 12Number of countries: 16 of 250Number of comets: 579 of 1024Number of observations: 24171- Visual Observations: 15221- CCD Observations: 8950

Observed comets: (579) Total: Visual: CCD:

Short-period comets: (192) 7991 4631 3360One-apparition Short-period comets: (82) 659 130 529Long-period comets: (305): 15521 10460 5061

Year: Total: Visual: CCD:2014 1292 676 6162013 1729 931 7982012 876 465 4112011 1917 1029 8882010 1110 521 5892009 1034 418 6162008 559 469 902007 950 600 3502006 1221 701 5202005 2021 749 12722004 1818 1017 8012003 1980 596 13842002 1490 905 5852001 427 403 242000 218 214 41999 709 709 01998 634 632 21997 735 735 01996 1102 1102 01995 279 279 01994 598 598 01993 215 215 01992 208 208 01991 112 112 01990 610 610 0

10 most observed comets: Total: Visual: CCD:29P 964 293 671C/2004 Q2 896 670 226C/1995 O1 588 588 0C/2001 Q4 570 401 169103P 482 360 122C/2002 C1 424 357 67C/2003 K4 382 197 185C/2009 P1 372 331 41C/2006 W3 358 193 16517P 358 329 29

COBS – Visits statistics

• Website is used by users all over the world

• More than 36000 visits since announcement• Number of users/visits is rising– Currently on average 60 visits per day