Sorry, you are not allowed to register by yourself on this site!
So, I have packed sources and documentation of my fast GeoHash library named fgh.
Download fgh-0.1. Look at kinda project page. Enjoy.
Licensed under GPL-3. If you’d like another license, leave a comment or contact e-mail that you will find in sources.
Tomorrow I’m going to get my own Dob.
Upd: due to transportation problems, I didn’t move the Dob home yet, but paid advance money.
I have chosen new name for my GeoHash library: Fgh (“Fast GeoHash”). Mercurial repository is available at http://ivan.ivanych.net/hg/fgh/.
After I update decoder, I will release final version.
Currently I plan to release it under GPL.
So, we were able to watch Jupiter last nigh!!!
Conditions seemed to be poorer than yesterday — I barely saw Hercules and with great trouble found M13 to show it to my wife. I also found that RA and Dec handles do not work very well — it’s time to use screwdriver.
M13 wasn’t very well — only smooth spot, no stars at edge. I think it is caused by light pollution, because under good sky 120x and even 90x should be good enough (correct me if I’m wrong).
By 2:30 Jupiter floated away from edge of building and surrounding trees. I tried to use finderscope, and found it to be completely misaligned. But with 24mm eyepiece I found it and then switched to 15mm with Barlow lens (BL) and then 10mm with BL.
With 10mm+BL ocular I clearly saw darker stripes and brighter stripes above and below darker ones. Picture wasn’t as bright as with 15mm+BL, but with latter I clearly saw a chromaticism around Jupiter (side effect of Barlow lens). We saw all 4 Galilean moons.
When packing oculars, I found Moon filter installed on 10mm ocular!!! That’s why Jupiter was darker (but not too dark), and that’s why I saw stripes better and saw no chromaticism. Perhaps, Moon filter is not the best thing for Jupiter observation, but Good Enough(tm).
Last night my wife and I opened astronomical season lying on sofa on our balcony and watching stars and Jupiter with old (“made in USSR”) 8×30 binocular.
It was first clear night after several weeks of clouds and rains. Incredibly poor summer for our region.
First, I tried to guess constellations. I don’t know constellations very well yet, and sky is not as dark as it was during my last May observations (and light pollution was higher, so some constellations was barely visible), so I only supposed that triangle high at sky is a Cygnus, then I launched Stellarium and found that my guess was right and bright star below Cygnus is Altair.
After watching Milky Way and random stars, I showed to Margarita globular cluster M13 in Hercules and “The Coathanger” Cr399 in Vulpecula. Then we watched Jupiter for some time, being able to spot two of its moons (another two bright satellites too very close to Jupiter). Now we are going to try to watch it with telescope — if weather will permit.
I have started small new project: JavaScript implementation of Geohash named Fgh. Of course, there are other good JavaScript implementations of Geohash, but I used different — fast — approach I have found with my math-fu.
I haven’t chosen license for this code, but probably something like MIT or BSD.
P.S. Originally I named this library ‘GX’, but this name is used by another JavaScript library. So, I chose ‘Fgh’ name (“Fast GeoHash”) and changed post and its URL.
I have created a dynamic map where everyone can put markers: persons, planetaria, observatories, etc. without any registration.
Current implementation allows you to publish and edit labelled markers, but I plan to implement:
There are mostly Russian AA (amateur astronomers) on the map, but this is mostly because I shared link to the map on Russian astronomy forums.
Enjoy, and add your markers: http://ivan.ivanych.net/astromap/.
There is also Atom feed of new and modified markers: http://ivan.ivanych.net/astromap/atom.
Codebase of this map is about 150 lines of PHP and 150 lines of JavaScript (plus sligthly modified JSON encoder from Zend Framework in PHP).
Random notes about 42
