Proposals

[Frederic V. Hessman]

Allow me to point out that the Remote Telescope Markup Language (RTML)  
community
already has a nearly-finished solution for this and that we are  
interested in making it VO-compatible in the long term.

The 11m Southern African Large Telescope will be using RTML as its  
proposal document format
even though RTML was originally intended just to be an observing  
request interface - basically
the same problem.

We have even written a prototype (!) RTML editor tool (called "Anduril"  
by its author, Christian Hettlage)
which can be used as a general proposal tool a la Gemini's PIT.

Try :
	http://monet.uni-sw.gwdg.de/twiki/bin/view/RTML/WebHome
	http://www.uni-sw.gwdg.de/~hessman/RTML/docs/SPIE2004.pdf  (long  
discussion on this topic)
	http://www.uni-sw.gwdg.de/~hettlage/RTML/anduril  (prototype RTML  
proposal tool)
	http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query? 
bibcode=2002A%26A...395..727P&db_key=AST&high=413f10822d25966   
(article on old version of RTML)

We'd welcome input from the radio (and VO) community, since until now  
the emphasis has been
on classical ground-based optical/IR telescopes.

Rick

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
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Dr. Frederic V. Hessman      Hessman at Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.DE
Universitaets-Sternwarte     Tel.  +49-551-39-5052
Geismarlandstr. 11                Fax +49-551-39-5043
37083 Goettingen                 http://www.uni-sw.gwdg.de/~hessman
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
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MONET: a MOnitoring NEtwork of Telescopes
http://monet.uni-goettingen.de
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On 20 Jan 2005, at 10:58 am, Anita Richards wrote:

>
> If we are looking at use-case driven priorities for standards, then
> something else which has come up in RadioNet is Proposal Tools.
>
> Reps from European radio observatories and ALMA have had discussions  
> about
> designing as homogenous as possible an interface for users making
> web-based observing proposals.  I know that something similar is going  
> on
> with US radio (at least) observatories, and as the common link is ALMA
> there is some hope of overall coherence....
>
> We did identify the need to establish a common model (not for small
> details, just to simplify terminology etc.).  The drivers for this are
> a) Allow software to be shared (as proposal tools use exposure  
> calculators
> etc.)
> b) Reduce the learning curve for users
> c) Make it easier to make multi-telescope proposals
>
> There is also the wish to use VO facilities to search for calibration
> sources etc. and invesigate what is known already about the region of
> interest.  More widely, the concept includes all kinds of proposals
> including for supercomputing facilities and potentially for very  
> demanding
> VO projects!
>
> At present we don't envisage proposal tools integrated into VO  
> interfaces
> nor that a search for X would produce a response 'no data yet but you
> could propose an observation with IRAM, deadline 99th of Thermidor'
> (although projects like ESTAR are moving in this direction), but to  
> employ
> a VO approach to standards and to link to VO facilities (e.g. cone
> search).
>
> I am probably not going to Kyoto and I don't know if it is worth a  
> special
> session, but if anyone else is interested we can set up a forum.
>
> cheers
> a
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Dr. Anita M. S. Richards, AstroGrid Astronomer
> MERLIN/VLBI National Facility, University of Manchester,
> Jodrell Bank Observatory, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 9DL, U.K.
> tel +44 (0)1477 572683 (direct); 571321 (switchboard); 571618 (fax).