We've been testing the standard edition for about a week now. It's been pretty harried. There are sixteen testers and it can be difficult to keep up with them. They have generated a lot of bugs for me to fix! But I don't mind that because fixing bugs is usually pretty simple and often fun. Sort of like doing detective work. You never know where it'll end up. And I can usually fix a bunch of them pretty quickly, which gives a great feeling of satisfaction.
We just did our first test of the new automatic program update, with mixed success. Lots of bugs got fixed, but the update itself was pretty rocky. I have a list of things I want to do better the next time, but of course they won't have the fixes in hand until they finish the update! So we'll have to muddle through at least one more time.
Even with all that going on--loads of emails, and fixing bugs--I've been spending most of my time struggling with trying to finish part of the program that's been giving me trouble for some time. I've gone back and forth on the design, wasting many hours of work, trying to get it right. Today I wrestled the monster to the ground and I think it has finally succumbed! I have some cleanup to do tomorrow and then I'll be free to move on to other things.
I want to get the data backup and restore features finished so we can start testing them, followed by the new sync feature, which will transfer data between SkyTools installations to bring them in sync. This kind of database work can be tedious and I'm not really looking forward to it. But when I get those two things done it will be clear sailing after that. I'll be able to finish up some of the more interesting new features and testing them should be more fun too.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Now Taking Volunteers for the Standard Edition Beta Test
It was a pretty exciting day as we officially started taking volunteers for the standard edition beta test. I will choose the primary team members by Tuesday and put the CD-Rs in the mail on Wednesday. Soon after the fun will begin!
The beta test web page is here:
http://www.skyhound.com/st3/st3beta.html
We've already had quite a few volunteers and I expect many more over the weekend. So far the majority were SkyTools 2 beta test team members and I'm excited to work with them again. It'll be like getting the old gang back together. I don't get to work with other people on SkyTools much; working with the beta test team is something I very much enjoy. That and it will all soon be coming together, which is enormously satisfying. SkyTools 3 has been four years in development (too long by any standard). I've been through a lot during that time and faced quite a bit of adversity, from corrupted data files to lying very near death in the ICU after a botched operation. It will be truly wonderful to finally see this baby out the door.
The beta test web page is here:
http://www.skyhound.com/st3/st3beta.html
We've already had quite a few volunteers and I expect many more over the weekend. So far the majority were SkyTools 2 beta test team members and I'm excited to work with them again. It'll be like getting the old gang back together. I don't get to work with other people on SkyTools much; working with the beta test team is something I very much enjoy. That and it will all soon be coming together, which is enormously satisfying. SkyTools 3 has been four years in development (too long by any standard). I've been through a lot during that time and faced quite a bit of adversity, from corrupted data files to lying very near death in the ICU after a botched operation. It will be truly wonderful to finally see this baby out the door.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Standard Edition Beta Test set for 15th
I had a nasty go-round with the Quasar database, but I'll spare you the details. Now that the databases are all but finished I've been working on getting the standard edition of the program together to be put on a CDROM. I have also been working on making sure SkyTools can find all of its files in their new destinations (scattered all over the computer thanks to Mr. Gates) and have been preparing the program for proper use with Vista.
All in all, things are going well! I bet the boss (Mrs. Skyhound) $100 that I could have the beta test process moving along by the 15th. I will be posting a call for testers on or before that date. After all, a hundred dollars is a hundred dollars!
All in all, things are going well! I bet the boss (Mrs. Skyhound) $100 that I could have the beta test process moving along by the 15th. I will be posting a call for testers on or before that date. After all, a hundred dollars is a hundred dollars!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
522,066,543
Last week was so annoying that I was thinking of writing a post entitled Open Cluster F**k. I intended to redo the open cluster positions by hand, but decided I'd have one last search of the literature before I took that fairly large project on. As it turns out I found a resource that had everything I needed to greatly improve the cluster data! I must admit, however, to some frustration with myself for not being previously aware of this catalog and with nearly missing it entirely. But there was also a catch (there always seems to be one). In the new catalog each cluster is identified with only one designation and the positions of the clusters had changed, sometimes dramatically. That made it difficult to match them to the clusters in my existing database (this is unfortunately a requirement). So I had to write yet another program to do the matching. It turned into a nasty little problem. Sometimes it feels like matching objects is all I do. I need a break!
At 4 AM one morning I awoke suddenly, realizing that the power was out. I worried about my now-silent computer that had been so busy crunching stars while I slept. Had the UPS shut it down gracefully? I had a look outside and the sky had cleared. Imagine having the lights go out in the surrounding community and you can't tell the difference! I am very lucky. The other amazing thing is that you could still clearly see everything in my observing area, illuminated by nothing but starlight. One thing I discovered when I moved to the top of a 9000ft mountain is that a "dark" transparent sky isn't really dark at all. But I digress.
I waited in vain for the power to return the next day. It didn't come back until 24 hours later, and I was again asleep. The next day I had to go to Las Cruces, so I lost two full days of work. By the time I got back to it, I had trouble remembering what I had been working on so enthusiastically. I hate that.
Anyhow, once again I can report that it all turned out well in the end. The Open Cluster database is improved dramatically with data that was not available when I built ST2. And my computer picked up where it had left off, marching right on with matching those millions of stars for the new stellar database.
Speaking of that, I have to admit to some second guessing regarding my project to create a much larger stellar database. People keep asking me, "Is that really necessary?" This is what always happens when I come up with one of my big ideas. It seems like everyone I know tries to shoot it (and me) down. Don't get me wrong--they mean well, but I have this tendency to go out on a limb with some new innovation and most of the time the people around me don't see it the way I do. Add to that my own fears and insecurities about being out there on that limb and it can be disheartening. Fortunately most of my innovations have turned out for the best, but for a few spectacular exceptions, But the "proof is in the pudding" as they say, and I naturally worry that I'm making a mistake, particularly when it is a long-term project. On the one hand having a much deeper database seems like a no-brainer, but on the other there is that nagging question: do people really need that many stars?
What if I build it and they don't come?
The Pudding Comes out of the Oven
At 5:33 PM today an historic moment occurred (at least for me). The last star was added to the new "pro" stellar database, bringing the total number of stars to over 522 million. Yowza! Leave it to me to be off by a factor of two in my estimate! Apparently I overestimated how many stars would be excluded due to various reasons. SkyTools 2 in comparison, like all other current software, ships with a mere 20 million (or so) stars. So is this a revolution in the making?
Oddly, I also managed to get my estimate for the final size of the database wrong by a factor of two. Thankfully, I overestimated that one. The map database comes to just under 4.3 GB, which is small enough to fit on a single DVD-ROM. This development opens up some interesting possibilities with regard to how we may offer the "pro" version. But again, I digress.
As the database neared completion I was able to play with the parts of the sky that were available. I used ST3 a lot to check out the new open cluster positions and sizes. It looks great. And there sure are lots of stars! There is also a more subtle effect: so many more of the stars now have colors that the display is very pleasing. I got used to it very quickly.
Then I had the "wow" moment. I was looking at NGC 7142, an open cluster dear to my heart, in the ST3 Interactive Atlas when I had the idea to compare it to the old ST2 view. I fired up ST2 and was immediately struck by the difference. As you zoom in with ST2 you quickly reach the point where the existing stars merely get bigger and no new stars appear. You can see for yourself below:
After spending so much time with ST3, not only did it feel like most of the sky was missing in ST2, but the position and size of the cluster is, well, rather embarrassing! So do I feel like I've wasted my time with these databases? No Way!
What a relief.
At 4 AM one morning I awoke suddenly, realizing that the power was out. I worried about my now-silent computer that had been so busy crunching stars while I slept. Had the UPS shut it down gracefully? I had a look outside and the sky had cleared. Imagine having the lights go out in the surrounding community and you can't tell the difference! I am very lucky. The other amazing thing is that you could still clearly see everything in my observing area, illuminated by nothing but starlight. One thing I discovered when I moved to the top of a 9000ft mountain is that a "dark" transparent sky isn't really dark at all. But I digress.
I waited in vain for the power to return the next day. It didn't come back until 24 hours later, and I was again asleep. The next day I had to go to Las Cruces, so I lost two full days of work. By the time I got back to it, I had trouble remembering what I had been working on so enthusiastically. I hate that.
Anyhow, once again I can report that it all turned out well in the end. The Open Cluster database is improved dramatically with data that was not available when I built ST2. And my computer picked up where it had left off, marching right on with matching those millions of stars for the new stellar database.
Speaking of that, I have to admit to some second guessing regarding my project to create a much larger stellar database. People keep asking me, "Is that really necessary?" This is what always happens when I come up with one of my big ideas. It seems like everyone I know tries to shoot it (and me) down. Don't get me wrong--they mean well, but I have this tendency to go out on a limb with some new innovation and most of the time the people around me don't see it the way I do. Add to that my own fears and insecurities about being out there on that limb and it can be disheartening. Fortunately most of my innovations have turned out for the best, but for a few spectacular exceptions, But the "proof is in the pudding" as they say, and I naturally worry that I'm making a mistake, particularly when it is a long-term project. On the one hand having a much deeper database seems like a no-brainer, but on the other there is that nagging question: do people really need that many stars?
What if I build it and they don't come?
The Pudding Comes out of the Oven
At 5:33 PM today an historic moment occurred (at least for me). The last star was added to the new "pro" stellar database, bringing the total number of stars to over 522 million. Yowza! Leave it to me to be off by a factor of two in my estimate! Apparently I overestimated how many stars would be excluded due to various reasons. SkyTools 2 in comparison, like all other current software, ships with a mere 20 million (or so) stars. So is this a revolution in the making?
Oddly, I also managed to get my estimate for the final size of the database wrong by a factor of two. Thankfully, I overestimated that one. The map database comes to just under 4.3 GB, which is small enough to fit on a single DVD-ROM. This development opens up some interesting possibilities with regard to how we may offer the "pro" version. But again, I digress.
As the database neared completion I was able to play with the parts of the sky that were available. I used ST3 a lot to check out the new open cluster positions and sizes. It looks great. And there sure are lots of stars! There is also a more subtle effect: so many more of the stars now have colors that the display is very pleasing. I got used to it very quickly.
Then I had the "wow" moment. I was looking at NGC 7142, an open cluster dear to my heart, in the ST3 Interactive Atlas when I had the idea to compare it to the old ST2 view. I fired up ST2 and was immediately struck by the difference. As you zoom in with ST2 you quickly reach the point where the existing stars merely get bigger and no new stars appear. You can see for yourself below:
What a relief.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Working Vacation
Well, sort of. This past week Mrs. Skyhound has been away at a conference and the Skyhound kids are out of school. Between feeding them, clothing them, taking them to their baseball games, following both the Stanley Cup and Louis Vuitton Cup finals with them, and separating the two of them when they fight, I haven't had a lot of time to work.
Nonetheless there have been some important milestones. In addition to working in here and there the tying up of little loose ends, I added even more improved data to the planetary nebula database (it's really looking good).
But the big news is that I finished the end-to-end testing of the new stellar database and it passed with flying colors. The final count was 16,330,450 stars, including over 50,000 variables and 72,089 multiple star systems. I don't have a final count for the total number of double-star pairs, but it is likely close to 100,000. I also ran many tests on special cases, such as the long-period binary pair BL Cet and UV Cet, Barnard's star, etc. Everything is go.
It was time to start creating the full database for the "pro" version, which will add large numbers of faint stars down to magnitude 20. There are a total of 24 declination bands, of which 3 are now complete. At the current rate it looks like it may take a week running continuously to finish the database, bringing the total number of stars to something around 250 million. SkyTools is really impressive when targeted in the bands already completed. It seems like you can zoom in forever and the stars just keep coming!
Nonetheless there have been some important milestones. In addition to working in here and there the tying up of little loose ends, I added even more improved data to the planetary nebula database (it's really looking good).
But the big news is that I finished the end-to-end testing of the new stellar database and it passed with flying colors. The final count was 16,330,450 stars, including over 50,000 variables and 72,089 multiple star systems. I don't have a final count for the total number of double-star pairs, but it is likely close to 100,000. I also ran many tests on special cases, such as the long-period binary pair BL Cet and UV Cet, Barnard's star, etc. Everything is go.
It was time to start creating the full database for the "pro" version, which will add large numbers of faint stars down to magnitude 20. There are a total of 24 declination bands, of which 3 are now complete. At the current rate it looks like it may take a week running continuously to finish the database, bringing the total number of stars to something around 250 million. SkyTools is really impressive when targeted in the bands already completed. It seems like you can zoom in forever and the stars just keep coming!
Saturday, May 26, 2007
The Story of Skyhound
When I started my fledgling software business back in 1990 I needed a name. I loved the name Sirius Software (a pun would be absolutely perfect for my sense of humor) but it was already being used. I wanted something unique that had "soft" in it for "software." So I started going through constellations and stars adding "soft" to them, such as LyraSoft, AltairSoft, etc., until I came across one I liked: CapellaSoft. I didn't realize at the time that for many around the world I'd in fact named my endeavor GoatSoft!
At that time the commercial Internet was just getting started and I wasn't ready as yet to have my own domain name. When the time finally came I checked for capellasoft.com and discovered to my great dismay that it was already registered. Some guy in Phoenix had it, although he wasn't using it. No doubt he'd registered it with the idea that I'd one day buy it from him. That really ticked me off; I hated the idea of being extorted for my own name. About that time we were thinking about moving from California to New Mexico, and we made a car trip across the southwest. On the long drive I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my new web site. I knew I wanted to split it into two parts, one for the business and one for observing. But try as I might I couldn't come up with a good name for the URL. With capellasoft.com taken I was looking for something more unique and interesting.
As we drove across southern New Mexico we passed Rock Hound State Park. I thought, if there were amateur rock hounds, why couldn't there be amateur sky hounds? When I got home I checked the domain name: skyhound.com was available. I also did a search on skyhound using the search engines of the day, and I got only two hits, both from Italy. Apparently there was a sci-fi comic book that had a space shuttle in it named Skyhound. But that was it. I knew I'd found my name. Eventually it was too confusing to have CapellaSoft at skyhound.com, so I went ahead and changed the name of my business to match.
After I registered skyhound.com I realized that if I was going to coin a new word then I had the chance to define it as well. So I added this at the top of my new web page: "Skyhound -- noun: someone with a keen interest in all aspects of the sky--from visual observation to scientific curiosity."
This morning I typed Skyhound into Google. There were 13,800 hits! It's not all me though--there is a wireless internet company called Skyhound, which judging by their logo is a takeoff of skyhoundz competition, which is about dogs catching frisbees.
I used to be able to sign up for web services and email addresses using the nickname skyhound, but now more often than not it's already taken. Although on the one hand that's a bit annoying, on the other I have to chuckle and shake my head. I wonder how much in total the guy in Phoenix paid year after year for capellasoft.com?
At that time the commercial Internet was just getting started and I wasn't ready as yet to have my own domain name. When the time finally came I checked for capellasoft.com and discovered to my great dismay that it was already registered. Some guy in Phoenix had it, although he wasn't using it. No doubt he'd registered it with the idea that I'd one day buy it from him. That really ticked me off; I hated the idea of being extorted for my own name. About that time we were thinking about moving from California to New Mexico, and we made a car trip across the southwest. On the long drive I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my new web site. I knew I wanted to split it into two parts, one for the business and one for observing. But try as I might I couldn't come up with a good name for the URL. With capellasoft.com taken I was looking for something more unique and interesting.
As we drove across southern New Mexico we passed Rock Hound State Park. I thought, if there were amateur rock hounds, why couldn't there be amateur sky hounds? When I got home I checked the domain name: skyhound.com was available. I also did a search on skyhound using the search engines of the day, and I got only two hits, both from Italy. Apparently there was a sci-fi comic book that had a space shuttle in it named Skyhound. But that was it. I knew I'd found my name. Eventually it was too confusing to have CapellaSoft at skyhound.com, so I went ahead and changed the name of my business to match.
After I registered skyhound.com I realized that if I was going to coin a new word then I had the chance to define it as well. So I added this at the top of my new web page: "Skyhound -- noun: someone with a keen interest in all aspects of the sky--from visual observation to scientific curiosity."
This morning I typed Skyhound into Google. There were 13,800 hits! It's not all me though--there is a wireless internet company called Skyhound, which judging by their logo is a takeoff of skyhoundz competition, which is about dogs catching frisbees.
I used to be able to sign up for web services and email addresses using the nickname skyhound, but now more often than not it's already taken. Although on the one hand that's a bit annoying, on the other I have to chuckle and shake my head. I wonder how much in total the guy in Phoenix paid year after year for capellasoft.com?
Monday, May 21, 2007
Progress and Frustration
It's been a couple of weeks since my last post. There's been quite a lot going on. My family has kept me very busy as the school year winds down and I've had a nasty cold. So far my progress report for this month is a mixed bag: things have been going slower than I'd like, yet I have undeniably moved forward toward that ever brightening light at the end of the tunnel.
For a while there it seemed like things were moving at a snail's pace and I was pretty frustrated. I bitterly recalled claiming here that making the chart cursor ignore objects when the shift key is depressed would take "two minutes." So I decided to time myself. Sure enough, it only took 1:45 from opening the editor to testing it successfully. But before I drew too much satisfaction, I realized that I needed to add the same code to two other charts, meaning it would in fact take three times longer than I had estimated!
Sigh.
I turned most my attention to the observing lists, adding a bunch of new columns. It seems like not a day goes by that I don't add a new one. In fact, I thought of a new one last night that I need to add today. This is one of those annoying things that appear as one item on my ToDo list, yet like a cosmic ray explodes into a shower of little items to be checked off. The most time consuming part isn't changing the code, it's coming up with nice-looking icons for the columns that require them. For instance, I spent a lot of time on the observing priority and observing status icons. For the status I ended up with a little Keck dome open to the night sky for objects that need observation, and a daytime shot of the dome closed for objects that have been observed. They look nice but I'm not sure I like them.
The priority icons are just awful. I hate them! So I'll have to try another approach, maybe simply going with the numbers 1, 2, and 3. I dislike wasting time on such trivialities, but in the end it's often the little details that count the most and the problem with being near the end is that you can't put them off any longer. Fortunately I like how the 5-star ratings came out.
One thing that's satisfying is making a little leap of insight. I had a customer email me some time ago with regard to the needs of imagers, and I read what he wrote but didn't really get what he meant through my sometimes rather thick skull. Fortunately while I was looking into imaging from the "what can I compute?" point of view I had a tiny epiphany: it's great to know what your chances of detecting an object tonight are, but it's even better to compare that to the best circumstances. And that applies to visual observing too. In other words, if tonight detecting M98 is "challenging" it's immensely useful to know that on another night it may in fact be "easy." So I added a new column that tells you how easy the object is to detect on a the best night for comparison. Unfortunately it takes up quite a bit of screen real estate. So I'm adding a new column with little colored-circle icons that summarizes the comparison: green means that tonight the object is at prime visibility, yellow means it is degraded somewhat, and red means wait for another night. And yes, this is pretty much what had been suggested (smacks forehead with palm).
I've also been working on the deep sky databases. It turns out that the LMC globular clusters were missing. Being an ignorant northerner, I didn't even realize there were LMC globulars! The source catalog I used was for Milky Way clusters (duh). Some are quite bright and nice, for those far enough south to observe them. I've also added the MASH planetary nebulae and updated positions and magnitudes for other planetaries. I'm currently working on the open cluster database, primarily improving positions. Fortunately the databases are going fairly quickly.
That's NGC 2210, a "new" LMC globular cluster above.
Anyhow, like I said it's a mixed bag to report: I've had to let go of the idea of starting the beta test at the beginning of June, but on the other hand things are moving along without any more major setbacks. I'm not going to try to predict anymore when It'll be ready to start testing other than to say it will be this summer for sure.
For a while there it seemed like things were moving at a snail's pace and I was pretty frustrated. I bitterly recalled claiming here that making the chart cursor ignore objects when the shift key is depressed would take "two minutes." So I decided to time myself. Sure enough, it only took 1:45 from opening the editor to testing it successfully. But before I drew too much satisfaction, I realized that I needed to add the same code to two other charts, meaning it would in fact take three times longer than I had estimated!
Sigh.
I turned most my attention to the observing lists, adding a bunch of new columns. It seems like not a day goes by that I don't add a new one. In fact, I thought of a new one last night that I need to add today. This is one of those annoying things that appear as one item on my ToDo list, yet like a cosmic ray explodes into a shower of little items to be checked off. The most time consuming part isn't changing the code, it's coming up with nice-looking icons for the columns that require them. For instance, I spent a lot of time on the observing priority and observing status icons. For the status I ended up with a little Keck dome open to the night sky for objects that need observation, and a daytime shot of the dome closed for objects that have been observed. They look nice but I'm not sure I like them.
The priority icons are just awful. I hate them! So I'll have to try another approach, maybe simply going with the numbers 1, 2, and 3. I dislike wasting time on such trivialities, but in the end it's often the little details that count the most and the problem with being near the end is that you can't put them off any longer. Fortunately I like how the 5-star ratings came out.
One thing that's satisfying is making a little leap of insight. I had a customer email me some time ago with regard to the needs of imagers, and I read what he wrote but didn't really get what he meant through my sometimes rather thick skull. Fortunately while I was looking into imaging from the "what can I compute?" point of view I had a tiny epiphany: it's great to know what your chances of detecting an object tonight are, but it's even better to compare that to the best circumstances. And that applies to visual observing too. In other words, if tonight detecting M98 is "challenging" it's immensely useful to know that on another night it may in fact be "easy." So I added a new column that tells you how easy the object is to detect on a the best night for comparison. Unfortunately it takes up quite a bit of screen real estate. So I'm adding a new column with little colored-circle icons that summarizes the comparison: green means that tonight the object is at prime visibility, yellow means it is degraded somewhat, and red means wait for another night. And yes, this is pretty much what had been suggested (smacks forehead with palm).I've also been working on the deep sky databases. It turns out that the LMC globular clusters were missing. Being an ignorant northerner, I didn't even realize there were LMC globulars! The source catalog I used was for Milky Way clusters (duh). Some are quite bright and nice, for those far enough south to observe them. I've also added the MASH planetary nebulae and updated positions and magnitudes for other planetaries. I'm currently working on the open cluster database, primarily improving positions. Fortunately the databases are going fairly quickly.
That's NGC 2210, a "new" LMC globular cluster above.Anyhow, like I said it's a mixed bag to report: I've had to let go of the idea of starting the beta test at the beginning of June, but on the other hand things are moving along without any more major setbacks. I'm not going to try to predict anymore when It'll be ready to start testing other than to say it will be this summer for sure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
