AstroJournal - a simple software for organising observation reports

[Piero]

After some request from SGL members, I decided to present a small software application I have been working on in my spare time.

In essence, this program is converts user’s observation reports (using a simple defined structure) into two tidy and organised PDF documents:

• one organising the data by target (see example: astrojournal_by_target.pdf );
• the other by session (see example: astrojournal_by_date.pdf ).

As of Sep 2015, this program is a beta release, and still does not have a proper graphical user interface (gui). I apologise for this, but as I said, I am developing this in my spare time. If you are interested in contributing with new features, please, feel free to let me know, so that we can work together. 

Thanks for your interest, 

Kind regards,

Piero

AstroJournal

An application for recording astronomy observation records in a tidy and consistent manner.

Licence: GPL v3 (2015)

Wiki page / Website: https://bitbucket.org/pdp10/astrojournal/

Description

This Java application imports files containing astronomy observations and generates an integrated journal document in PDF format using Latex. Observation files can be edited using a common Spreadsheet software (e.g. Google Spreadsheet, LibreOffice Calc, Office Excel) or any common text editor (e.g. MS Wordpad, Emacs, Kate, or GEdit) and must be saved as tab-separated value (tsv) files. To be recognised, fields must be separated by a TAB delimiter. No quote or single quotes should be added for marking the fields.

Features (as of 10th September 2015)

• Generation of a PDF document containing all user observation records collected by increasing target catalogue number. This is useful for comparing targets observed over time.
• Generation of a PDF document containing all user observation reports collected by decreasing date. This is useful for visualising one’s observations by session.
• Execution in batch mode (via command line). 
• Windows users can use a mini graphical window including a button for running the program. This is only temporary until a proper graphical user interface is completed.
• Complete lists of Messier objects and Caldwell selection of NGC targets are included at the end of the generated PDF documents.
• Although the program requires some form of structured input file, this is intentionally minimal in order to not distract the user who wants to insert his / her data rather than thinking of how to format this data. All input data is treated as a string and therefore is not parsed for controls. This leaves the freedom to the user to introduce the data content as s/he wish. For instance, although in each document header I use the Antoniadi Scale for Seeing, this can be trivially overridden with a customised one. The inserted value for the seeing is not controlled according to a specific scale. 
• Possibility to edit the document header and the footer according to one’s need. This must be done in LaTex for preserving the format controls in the final output file.

Future features

• Insert a new observation session using a graphical user interface (gui). 
• Have a GUI view where the previous observations can be visualised and edited.

Requirements and Download:

To use AstroJournal you need to install:

• Java 1.6+
• TeX Live (https://www.tug.org/texlive/  ; the command pdflatex must be available on command line)

The program can be downloaded here: https://bitbucket.org/pdp10/astrojournal/downloads .

Of note, the program size is MUCH smaller than what is reported. That is the size of the repository, which includes all the version history. After downloading and uncompressing the file, you can run AstroJournal on GNU/Linux typing:

# GNU/Linux or MacOSX users./create_journal.sh

or 

# if you are using Windows, click on the following icon (this will start a very basic window with 1 button):create_journal.bat

How to create an observation record

As currently implemented, the format of the observation tables is specific. A sample of an observation table is provided below. The titles Date, Time, Location, Altitude, Temperature, Seeing, Transparency, Telescopes, Eyepieces, Filters, Target, Cons, Type, Power, and Notes, cannot be changed as these are used by AstroJournal to retrieve the data. All fields are separated by a TAB character (character usually placed above "Caps Lock"), which must be used. Files containing reports like the sample shown below must be saved using the .tsv extension (tab-separated value). An example of observation is as follows:

Date                 03/06/2015 

Time                 21:40-23:30 

Location           Cambridge, UK

Altitude             12m 

Temperature    12C (wind: 0km/h) 

Seeing            1 - Perfect seeing 

Transparency  5 - Clear 

Telescopes     Tele Vue 60 F6 

Eyepieces       TV Panoptic 24mm, Nagler 3.5mm 

Filters              Single Polarising Filter 

Target      Cons      Type       Power               Notes 

Jupiter      Cnc       Planet     103x +/- SPF     Write description here. 

Moon        -            Satellite    103x                   Write description here.

Examples of observations can also be found in the folder tsv_folder/ . These files can be edited with any spreadsheet (e.g. Google SpreadSheet, MS Excel, LibreOffice SpreadSheet) or a common text editor (e.g. MS Wordpad, Emacs, Kate, or GEdit). To customise the document header and footer, please look at the folder latex_header_footer to find the Latex files for the header and footer. Also these files can be edited with any common text editor.

Use case

Here are some guidelines for using AstroJournal: 

1. Report your observations (with the structure of my tsv file) using a spreadsheet program, such as MS Excel, Libreoffice Spreadsheet, or Google Spreadsheet. Alternatively you can use a common text editor (e.g. Wordpad, GNU Emacs, Kate, etc.) as long as the fields are the same as in the samples provided in the tsv_report and that each field is separated using a TAB character.
2. Export your file as tsv (if using Google Spreadsheet) or csv. In the latter case, when asked, select tab as field delimiter and no single or double quotation marks for the fields. Then, change the file extension from .csv to .tsv . If you used a text editor, you can save the file using the extension .tsv directly. 
3. Put this file in the folder tsv_reports. 
4. In the main astrojournal folder type the command above ./create_journal.sh or ./create_journal.bat .

[Piero]

Update

- Added support for CSV files

It is now possible to use .csv files for storing the input data. The format .tsv is still valid. Independently on the used extension (whether tsv or csv), the fields MUST be separated using a TAB character. Therefore, if the csv format is selected, the user should specify that the file is saved using TAB as delimiter instead of comma. This is required because the fields contain text and commas appear throughout one's report notes. Fields can be quoted or not.

- Folder renaming

The input folder tsv_folder is now called raw_folder, because astrojournal can now also parse .csv files aside from .tsv files. 

- Windows Users

I advise to install MiKTeX (http://miktex.org/download) instead of TeX Live. The routine pdflatex is automatically installed and works out of the box.

To correctly generate pdf documents using AstroJournal, the user should start the MiKTeX manager and install the following Latex packages: url and mptopdf . 

A (very) minimal graphical user interface should start by clicking on the icon generate_journal.bat inside the astrojournal folder. Then press the button Generate Journals, and once finished, close the window.

Thanks, 

Piero

[Piero]

Update

 

- Added new report

Generation of a PDF document listing all the observed targets sorted by increasing constellation name. This can be useful for quickly checking what one has observed within a constellation. (See example: astrojournal_by_constellation.pdf). 

[Anish]

Really liking the work here Piero. A great idea to be able to start storing your astronomical observations. I particularly like the TeX implementation, who doesn't love producing documents using TeX formats, makes them look far more scientific. Thanks for posting.

Anish

[Vox45]

Looking good ! thanks to people like you who make the life of people like me so much easier

[Piero]

Moved the main repository containing the source code of AstroJournal from Bitbucket.org to Github.com : 

https://github.com/pdp10/AstroJournal

[Piero]

Today, I did some work on this application.  This new version 0.9 adds: 

• Improved the AJ mini GUI to also report the program output graphically.
• Added a configuration class for managing the program parameters.
• Fixed a bug related to file names of galaxies.
• AJ now supports input parameters but also Java options.

The graphical user interface is still minimal but there is sufficient output now. 

  

Examples of PDF generated output files can be found here (https://bitbucket.org/pdp10/aj/wiki/Home) in the section "Download".

To download the application click here: https://github.com/pdp10/AstroJournal/archive/master.zip 

For additional requirements: https://github.com/pdp10/AstroJournal#requirements

Thanks for reading,  

Piero

[Piero]

NEW AstroJournal websIte: http://pdp10.github.io/AstroJournal/

Please, report issues / enhancements here: https://github.com/pdp10/AstroJournal/issues

Main updates:

• New website (this contains links to the last version of AstroJournal).
• Added Tango icon set to AJ menu items.
• Added Darkness as new Observation parameter. This can be used for recording sky quality reading using meters such as SQM-L.
• Creation of an executable file (.exe) for Windows users. 
• Added menu bar, preferences and help to the GUI.
• Input and output files are now placed in a configurable folder outside the folder containing the software AstroJournal. This folder can be edited using the Edit > Preferences menu.
• Added internationalisation for GUI strings.
• Improved graphical report.
• Several bug fixes. 
• AstroJournal now requires Java 1.7+ (Windows, GNU/Linux OS).
• Added automated jUnit tests and log messages to notify if input raw reports contain errors.
• If Latex is not installed, AstroJournal warns the user about this missing dependency and offers instructions for downloading this.
• Astrojournal can also run via command line
• Examples of raw reports are provided.