SSA-1.1

[Norman Gray]

Petr and all, hello.

On 2011 Apr 27, at 02:07, Petr Skoda wrote:

>> There is a proposal to systematically create URIs to refer to astronomical objects, backed by the SIMBAD list, though the same mechanism would work with other object lists and catalogues with only minor adaptation.
> 
> That is, http://domain-tbd.org/id/1575544 would act 
>> as a unique name for M31, for example, without any issues of encoding, spaces, case, and so on.
> 
> I am afraid that the creation uf unique IDs is the problem of someone who will decide and assign the name to the object etc .. in fact this is done
> in SIMBAD today as well  - but it takes some time (and the PI of the project have to ask  simbad editors to include their newly found extremely interesting object.

That's true -- SIMBAD can't be complete, and probably shouldn't be.  SIMBAD's important role here would be authority, and universal intelligibility: everyone 'understands' SIMBAD.

> the problem here is in the rate of such a newly discovered objects - I am sure that with large surveys there will be massive boom of publications about object SATELITE-XXXXX or NEW-SURVEY-YYYYY  (and even some spectra . not only photometry will be cited).

But SIMBAD needn't be alone; the pattern is applicable to other object collections.

Thus the 'New Survey' project could expose its catalogue as http://new-survey.org/id/YYYYY.  Even if that URL doesn't resolve, it's still has all the advantages I mentioned above (no encoding, space, or case issues).  Presuming it resolves, it has the additional advantages I mentioned.  Presuming that at least some of the objects subsequently get SIMBAD object IDs, this equivalence (http://new-survey.org/id/12345 sameAs http://...simbad.../id/98765) can be declared.

No new technology is required for this, and the only application just a thin service layer which  already exists.

Best wishes,

Norman


-- 
Norman Gray  :  http://nxg.me.uk
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK