Wide or Narrow Schema for VOEvent?

[Alasdair Allan]

Rob Seaman wrote:
> Alasdair Allan says:
>> I would suggest that STC is one of several possible starting places, 
>> and wouldn't have been my initial choice.
>
> Ok - I'll cheerfully admit my ignorance of these several alternatives.

I didn't use the word alternatives, I said starting places...

> What would your initial choice have been?

To roll a very simple XML representation of RA, Dec, Epoch and Equinox 
and leave the door open for this in-house effort to be substituted for 
in actual VOEvent messages by either a alternative (more complex) XML 
document if that's what's needed (because we're working in some weird 
and wonderful co-ordinate system for instance) or by some other 
serialised (perhaps proprietary) co-ordinate representation that may be 
project specific.

Off the top of my head,

<Coordinates>
   <RightAscension format="hh mm ss.s" units="hms">24 00 
00.0</RightAscension>
   <Declination format="sdd mm ss.s" units="dms">+45 00 
00.0</Declination>
   <Equinox>J2000</Equinox>
   <Epoch>2005.34</Epoch>
</Coordinates>

would have done me just fine, probably along with something as simple 
as,

<DateObs time="UTC">2005-03-18T12:36:19.619</DateObs>

as a date stamp.

Al.