Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Mon, 08/29/2016 - 16:38
I understand that there was a working group (perhaps it still exists) that discussed additions and/or changes to the metadata collected with electronic observations. Were any conclusions reached?
It seems I was wrong about the existence of a committee, but perhaps that makes this an opportune venue to raise the question of metadata in the AID. When I submit my BV PEP observations, I now include the following information in the comments field:
1) telescope used; 2) photometer used; 3) location; 4) transform coefficient; 5) extinction coefficient (single-channel photometrists use this); 6) second-order extinction coefficient for B band; 7) measured delta(B-V) of variable and comparison; 8) reduction program.
The great bulk of electronic observations don't have any of this information. Exactly what parameters are important to record is a topic for debate, but it seems to me that our current metadata are inadequate.
Tom