Wide or Narrow Schema for VOEvent?

[Chris Stoughton]

How about a web service that uses the Very Wide format to tell you where 
to point your telescope, with a description the error surface (+/- 
position and time) at the specified observing date?

This would be a very complex web service.  Providers of events would be 
certified by using this web service with their output to generate 
correct answers.


Roy Williams wrote:

> Here is a question regarding the reporting of positional information 
> for astronomical events. Should the reporting standard be
>
> (a) Very Narrow,
> meaning (for example) all positions in RA and Dec in ICRS frame seen 
> from center of Earth in the format H:M:S/D:M:S? In this case it is 
> easy for the event consumer to, for example, compute angular distance 
> between two events. But it would be too narrow to report some events 
> adequately (eg Martian volcano).
>
> (b) Very Wide,
> meaning that you can use galactic coordinates, or Jovicentric 
> coordinates, or coordinates in equinox B1870.0, or Martian 
> longitude/latitude. In this case, the event creator has wide freedom 
> to use a natural coordinate system. But the consumer must be able to 
> interpret something rather complex.
>
> How do we compromise between these extremes?
> Roy
>
> --------
> California Institute of Technology
> roy at caltech.edu
> 626 395 3670