Re: Scope of registry

From: Arnold Rots <arots-at-head-cfa.cfa.harvard.edu>
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 13:55:00 -0500 (EST)


So, it becomes a matter of degree.
I would argue, for the sake of simplicity of the registry, that it contain a single "record" per resource, rather than a record plus a full catalog of observations. In my mind, that part of the query should be posed to the resource itself, especially since it is already implied in the full query that goes in that direction anyway. It also removes the necessity of making sure that the registry is continuously updated with new observations.

Clive Page wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Feb 2003, Arnold Rots wrote:
>
> > At issue is the question how "potentially" should be defined.
>
> Just to clarify one point arising from Alex Szalay's comments and yours -
> I don't think it is necessary for detailed information to be held in the
> Registry, as the best answer the Registry can give the user as to whether
> a given resource has the required information are just
>
> - no
> - maybe
>
> (because the answer "yes" implies a degree of certainty which the
> Registry, with its somewhat high-level view of metadata, can never have).
>
> So the spatial information in the Registry does not need to be concerned
> with exact edges, or chip boundaries, or other fine details, just enough
> to know whether the field was probably covering the (RA,DEC) of interest.
>
> It would still be useful to know whether one was within the typical field
> radius of the centre of some HST observation (if one were interested in
>
>
> --
> Clive Page,
> Dept of Physics & Astronomy,
> University of Leicester, Tel +44 116 252 3551
> Leicester, LE1 7RH, U.K. Fax +44 116 252 3311
>


Arnold H. Rots                                Chandra X-ray Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 67                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots-at-head-cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
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Received on 2003-02-05Z19:56:36