VOEvent draft specification 0.3

[Roy Williams]

This from Paul Price with permission.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Price" <price at ifa.hawaii.edu>
To: "Roy Williams" <roy at caltech.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: VOEvent draft specification 0.3

Please note the correct spelling of "Pan-STARRS" (the Panoramic Survey Telescope and 
Rapid Response System).  I'm sure that LIGO should be capitalised; possibly QUEST 
also.

I suggest that the default coordinate frame should be ICRS (which is close to, but 
not identical with J2000), since it is the modern standard.

Curation Date should include hms to allow multiple releases within the same day.

"Importance" needs further fleshing out.

The discussion on the GCN is a bit too simple.  The GCN consists of two independent 
mechanisms.  The first is the notices, which consist of token-value pairs (some of 
which are parsed onto a single line for cell phones etc), distributed by e-mail or 
internet socket.  The second is the circulars, which are free text, basically an 
e-mail mailing list.  The notices are quite successful at allowing robotic 
observation of GRBs, but also provide rapid notification for humans as well, while 
the circulars are intended solely for human reading.  Hence there are
multiple schema.

The GCN notices are quite diverse, varying according to the requirements of each 
mission.  For details, see http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/sock_pkt_def_doc.html  The 
most common keywords are RA, Dec, position error, type, serial number, trigger 
number, time.

P.