----- Original Message ---- > From: Sander Pool <[email protected]> > > John, > > Your discouragement implies that USNO doesn't know what it's doing
NO IT DOESN'T!!! _PLEASE_ quit reading things into my messages that I DIDN'T SAY! Are you going to disagree with their own statement that "our resources are limited"? They're not a commercial enterprise that makes more money if they sell more product. They're a gov't agency with a fixed budget that they have little control over (been there, done that), and give away the product. As a taxpayer, I think it's very appropriate if they want to try to aim those resources where they're most useful (and I'm a self described liberal). I have no problem with the USNO. I think they do a great job. Your earlier comment that "Sure the UCAC project is from the 'olden days' but who cares?" is again a corruption of what I said. I said that its direct value to the military is probably limited. But it's definitely something that's needed in many areas of astronomy. But as part of the military, the USNO has to fight for resources against people building fighter jets, which is much easier to sell to senators and the public. > and > that Mr Zacharias hasn't learned anything from earlier catalog releases. I found another old USNO page from when their supply of USNO-A2.0 disc sets ran out: <http://web.archive.org/web/20011216035816/ftp.nofs.navy.mil/projects/pmm/a.response>, where Dave Monet says: "Please understand that USNO-A is the first extremely large star catalog, and we are learning (the hard way) about the difficulties of distributing such a large amount of data." (and coincidentally, in the same message he says that it can now be downloaded from their computers, but also warns about the problems you could cause by trying to download it from their computers too fast) UCAC3 is only a little larger than USNO-A2.0, and definitely they've likely learned a lot, and computers have advanced (one DVD disc vs a stack of CDs, and faster downloads). This time they don't ask you to justify your request, so I suspect things have improved. But if they're still bothering to point out that "our resources are limited", I'll take them at their word. Lots of problems with data in this catalog have already been pointed out (as happens with any new large catalog), and I'd rather have them focusing on that than have them overwhelmed with thousands of requests for discs from people whose only reason for wanting it is because it's there. All I was saying was the exact same thing Patrick said in the very first sentence of this thread: "UCAC3 is available now but I suggest you not rush to ask a DVD, the USNO as probably better thing to do than sending DVD to every amateur astronomer on earth." Several years ago, when I first started hunting asteroids, the supply of USNO-A2.0 discs had just run out My home computer was ancient, as were the old donated computers at the obs, so I didn't have access to a CD burner, so I couldn't even use Bill Gray's "pass along" scheme. And the astrometry software I use wasn't set up to get fields from Vizier (this is the most commonly used astrometry software, but I think Vizier was relatively new at the time). That problem was fixed a few months later after I suggested the idea to the author, but for the time being, I had to limp along with USNO-SA2.0, and if you know anything about that limited catalog, it was a PITA to try to match star patterns for astrometry when the automatic match failed. Some people want a catalog for scientific use that may have some benefit for everyone, and some just want it to have more stars in CdC while they take pretty pictures to hang on their walls. As a taxpayer, I don't have a problem with the USNO trying to direct their limited taxpayer-supported resources to where it can do the most good. UCAC3 is now available via Vizier, so if they run out of discs this time, it won't affect me. But for those who don't have internet access at remote sites, it could. > Is that something you'd like others to imply about you? If you said that > about me I'd be insulted. That's what I said. But that's not what _I_ said. And to Jim Jones, I also didn't say (or imply) that the USNO would be "offended at requests for their product." -John > It's not worth discussing this anymore as we clearly have different > opinions about the robustness of USNO, the maturity of the fine people > that work there and their ability to manage the roll out of a project of > this magnitude. I don't like the 'agree to disagree' phrase too much but > I think it applies here. I value your opinion on matters related to > astronomy and CdC and don't want to sour things further. > > Take it easy, > > Sander > > John Mahony wrote: > > > > > > What part did you think was insulting to the USNO? Here it is from the > > same USNO link I posted earlier: > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > >
