Friends,
It is with great pleasure that I would like to introduce our new light curve generator. It was created by one of our volunteers, Mr Francis Hemsher, and was tested by a number of our members (including our council) before becoming available to all. The new tool can be accessed from our “pick a star” (and then “plot a light curve”) front page button. New features include a “box” function that allows zooming in parts of the light curve, interactive selection/de-selection of filters, selection of specific observers’s data points, interactive JD/UT conversion of the axis (under “preferences”) and many more.
Also, the new light curve is connected to the “last observations received” feature of our front page – once a point is being added to the AID, one can see it plotted on the star’s light curve!
We will be adding new features to this tool as we go, and we will keep you informed on our progress. For now, please check it out J
Many thanks to Mr Hemsher and our staff and volunteers involved to create this new tool for our community!
Best wishes – clear skies,
Stella.
BTW, I don't like the visual data points plotted as very inconspicuous grey circles. An intentional "slight"? They look practically invisible compared to the bright green CCDV points!
Could you make visual points as blue-green "cyan"=RGB=(0,255,255) solid circles, to match rods visual band response, please? Thanks!
I don't know the motivation for choosing the visual observation markers, but there is a conundrum in that visual, Johnson V, CV, and TG all congregate in the same region of a light curve. The advantage of a hollow symbol for visual is that it gives the other bands a chance to "shine through" the holes so they don't disappear completely in a crowded display (it appears that visual data constitue the "top" layer of the curve).
Hi All,
Sara and I are considering removal of the feature that provides the ability to slide the original timeline forward/backward about 10% using arrow buttons at the bottom of the plot. Please lelt us know if you would want this feature should remain.
Thanks,
Francis
I've been playing with the LCG.V.2 soon after it was announced and since then as the comments, concerns, and suggestions continue to be incorporated into the new LCG. Thanks to everyone invoived in its creation and improvements. I especially like the ability to "smooth" the mean curve. Kudos!
Doug S.
Hi All,
We are presently including many of your suggestions. We plan to update the site with them on Jan 6th.
If you have additional suggestions, please post them before the end of December.
Again, thanks for your thoughts and ideas.
Francis
This ia LCG2 on my Android smartphone.......Useless
Nigel Wakefield
Hi Nigel,
After Jan 6th you should be OK. See images below:
I have played with the new LCG and it seems quite good. My only problem is when I plot a star with only a few points it will fill the screen givning a very spread out graph. On the old LCG, I could select a range ie 200 days and a more compressed graph resulted. It made changes easier to see by compressing the graph well past the first observation. My example is SS Tuc.
I also miss the remembered names that only need to be typed in once. Remembering how to type a name like 2E 0101.5-7225 is very difficult.
Terry
Hi All,
The LCG has been updated with various fixes. Also, three(3) new features have been added:
1.) Star History - This remembers all stars you have plotted, their time span, selected bands, date format, and magnitude type. A drop-down menu allows you to select a star name, and it is automatically inserted.
2.) Select Bands - Rather than showing all bands, you may choose which bands you want to plot.
3.) Sort Contributors - Contributors are initially listed in alphabetic order in a table. However, you may sort them by their number of observations.
Also...
The extend timeline arrow buttons at the bottom of the plot, have been removed.
The New LCG is no longer designated as 'BETA'.
A legend has been included in 'Print' that shows the band symbols.
Thanks so much for your comments,
Francis
P.S. A special thank you to Sara Beck for guiding me throughout the development of this fun project.
The discrepancy comments seem disabled. Is this feature to be enabled soon? Is it meant to take over functionality of Zapper?
Yes, this will activated, probably next week.
When you login to the AASVO site, the LCG will then automatically enable its Zapper feature when you call a plot for star. I assume Zapper will also remain accessible outside the LCG as it currently is.
Just to let you know that VStar can also be used to mark observations as discrepant, so now there are 3 tools that allow this.
David
Hi
could the last star name be remembered in the box where you can select a new star? Also it would be good to remember also those stars which have been previously searched for as a drop down box.
Thank you,
Josch
Hi Josh,
Yes, we've added that yesterday under 'Your Star History" feature. It remembers all stars you have requested, placing them in a drop-dwon menu in alphabetical order. Selecting a star name from the drop-down will place the selected star name into the 'Star Name' text element, also setting your selected bands, previous time span, date format, and if you've requested Standardized or Defferential Magnitude.
Francis
Hi Francis,
thank you for this information. Of course I would not have search it there. I expected something like on the main AAVSO webopage under "Pick a star", as soon as I type the stars are listed.
Anyway this way it also works.
I noticed since a while if I see on the main AAVSO page somebody submitted data I can click on the link to the star in question and get an LC. However if I submit data myself and see my name on the AAVSO page being the latest in submitting data I can not click on the blue link with the last stars submitted.
Is this a bug or a feature?
Josch
Hi Josch,
Yes, that's an intermittent bug. We'll fix it soonest.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Francis
Hi All,
We have created a new topic in the Software Development Forum. This will contain a continued listing of improvements, changes, questions, and suggestions to the new LCG. Please feel free to participate.
See: https://www.aavso.org/content/new-light-curve-generatorlcgv2-updates-questions-suggestions
It would be really nice if the "Star name" field was pre-loaded when we go to the LCG from the search on a given star. For example, if I go to the aavso homepage, type 'V UMA' in the 'pick a star' field, look at the latest data submitted and click the link 'Generate a light curve' from the WebObs Search Results, it would be really nice to have the "Star name" field pre-loaded with 'V UMA'.
This should be only a matter of passing the star name with post/get to the LCG page, so probably very easy.
Thanks,
jf
LCG2 is woring well, thanks.
One minor item - when a user submits both V and CV obserations, the list of filters used by the observer does not inlcude the V filter. See screen capture attached:
Hi Gordon,
Thank you for pointing out that problem. Francis has already made the correction to the code and it is now in place on the website.
With best regards,
Sara
Thanks for the quick fix, Francis!
It caught me by surprise. I like it.
http://jsonbasicstutorial.blogspot.com/