Observation Manager 1.020 released

[doergn]

G'day everyone,

after 7 years of development the free and open logbook Observation Manager (http://observation.sourceforge.net/en/index.html), reached its first full version number: 1.020

Thanks to everyone who contributed to that!

Some of the new features in 1.020:
- Mark equipment as unavailable (in case e.g. the eyepiece has been sold/got broken)
- French and dutch translation available
- Enhanced Apple/Mac start script
- Small horizontal map shows the position of the observed object during the observation
- Bug fixes and usability enhancements

Always get the latest news on Observation Manager on our blog at http://observationmanager.wordpress.com/
and visit our webpage at http://observation.sourceforge.net/en/index.html

Clear skies

Dirk

[kingkong01]

wow:eyepop: i just downloaded this i have never heard of it before but it looks realy good i had a quick play with it and i realy like it nice. thanks for the link:thanx:

[doergn]

Glad you like it. So spread the word.

If there're features missing, or you dicover bugs, please let me know.

Best

Dirk

[Omaroo]

Now investigating it as well - thanks for this Dirk :)

[michaellxv]

Thanks Dirk,

I started recording some observations with v0.92 and liked what I saw.
The new version looks good and the easiest upgrade I have ever done.

One question. How does is perform when you get a large database of observations?

[doergn]

Hi Michael,

very good question.

The bad news is that OM doesn't have an internal DB to store the data in, which would make it "easy" to handle mass data in a very fast way.
All the data persistance in OM is done via the <OAL> XML Schema (http://groups.google.com/group/openastronomylog).

To put numbers into that:
Loading 12800 Elements (-> ~10260 Observation, ~2460 Objects, some Scopes, Eyepieces, ...) on an Intel Core2 Duo, 2.53GHz with 3GB RAM (WinXP) took me ~30seconds. (Java 6)
Saving the same set of data (same machine) took me ~15 seconds.

I think this is ok (for me).
If you have more data (or your personal feeling of performance is different than mine), this is where the good news is:

OM Stores its data in the <OAL> Data Format, which is supported by many other applications like:
- DeepSky Log (http://www.deepskylog.org/) (Online Observation Database, free)
- Deep-Sky Planner (http://knightware.biz/dsp/index.php) (commercial)
- Eye & Telescope (http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521151153) (commercial)
and I think KStars supporting <OAL> is also already released. (Not sure about that...at least it should be supported with the latest version)

Those applications (at least I know from the first three) use a internal DB, that should be able to handle more observations/elements faster*.
*=Whatever "faster" means

So, OM is free and open, but it certainly has it's limits. I don't want to suppress that fact. But it's no dead end street. If you pushed OM to it's limits, there are other applications which are able to import OM data without any data loss.
Or, in case that a workaround would fit you, you can for sure create multiple files to store your observations in. With that you bypass the mass data problem as well. (But this also has its disadvantages like it's harder to create statistics, etc.)

Hope this answers your question.

Best

Dirk

[michaellxv]

Thanks Dirk,

I think OM is going to do just fine for me for quite some time yet.