2008-May 17Saturday

7Timer! development progress (test image release)

2008年5月17日23:32　 7Timer!　评论/Comment.

2-m temperture test image

2008-May 16Friday

7Timer! development progress

2008年5月16日23:30　 7Timer!　评论/Comment.

It has been three weeks since last update. The new Auto-run Pipeline is partly completed, and the models of cloud cover, seeing, transparency, 2-m relative humidity and 4-layer lifted index had been completed. The seeing model is rewrited completely base on much better and much more exact models, so is the model of transparency. Now the transparency has take the absorption of ozone into account, but still not man-made pollution (involved with aerosol, PM2.5, PM10, etc.) yet. Also you will see a 72-hour prediction of 4-layer lifted index, which is a good indicate of unstadabilities of the sky above.

Now the elements of 7Timer!-Panel 3 (there will be three products in the end: Panel 3 for 72-hour astronomical usage, Weatherchart for 384-hour prediction charts, and Weatherman for common-using 384-hour forecast) are: cloud work function (CWF), cloud cover, seeing, transparency, 2-m above ground temperture and relative humidity, 10-m above ground wind speed and direction, 4-layer lifted index, and sky darkness (man-made light pollution considered).

During development phase I, Panel 3, Weatherchart, and a basic web interface (website included) are expected to be completed. Weatherman would be completed in development phase II.

2008-Apr 26Saturday

7Timer!-III development resumed

2008年4月26日23:27　 7Timer!　2条评论 || 2 Comments

The development of the new version has resumed after a short break, I’m here write a few lines about recent development progress.

One of the new features of the new version will be the ability of forecasting the probability of the occurance of unstadible weather. I’m working on the previous research papers in these two days and try to write a good algorithm — but the dirty code work is not begin yet. I’m still organizing the whole tasks.

It will have been some days before we can see some result. Stay tuned.

2008-Apr 20Sunday

7Timer! back to normal

2008年4月20日12:10　 7Timer!　评论/Comment.

I finally managed to locate the cause of the 7Timer! problem, a map index file was uncorrectly decoded and the program cannot read the data correctly. The problem is now fixed. Things are back to normal since April 20. Meanwhile the development of the new system is paused, (partly) because the approaching mid-term exam. God saves me…

2008-Apr 17Thursday

Strange 7Timer! behavior occured recently

2008年4月17日23:12　 7Timer!　评论/Comment.

From April 14 the 7Timer! has encount a senior problem that all the data could not be display correctly. I’m still trying to figure out what went wrong… as these two days I have been to another campus of our college and made lectures, this problem was not annouced on time. I’m sorry about this. Anyway I’ll keep you update if there are any progress on it.

2008-Apr 14Monday

7Timer! Weather-map section problems

2008年4月14日14:12　 7Timer!　评论/Comment.

Recently I received quite many mails, reporting the problems of the weather map section (no new data after April 4). The problems is caused by the exceeding of disk quota, and I’ve made some temporary fixs by discard downloading the raw data that is 150 hours further, to allow room for further processings. Let’s see what happens tonight.

2008-Apr 10Thursday

Recent status of 7Timer! development

2008年4月10日10:02　 7Timer!　评论/Comment.

Hi all,

I apologize — the pause of development is long enough, I realized this last night by checking the “7Timer!” category on my blog, indeed, nothing has been done after January 21 (the lastest development update). In Feburary I went to Australia, then in March I was busying developing the OVOR, an important program for the survey work of Lulin Sky Survey (to be exactly, it’s written for the survey of transients), meanwhile my undergrad study had problems… hydrodynamics and mathmatic-physic method just drove me mad. What a mass…

Anyway, OVOR was able to be released as a beta version yesterday, and then I can come back for 7Timer!. I apologize for you all, especially for those who had wait for such a long time.

As the plan is, I’m now working on the 72-hour astronomical forecast part. I’ll not given any expect date this time — just let you know that the workload is not small. I have to write the module from ground-up this time, as the new 7Timer! will generally using ACSII->php graph, totally different from GrADS direct graph output as now it uses.

Anyway I’ll keep you update.

Quanzhi

2008-Jan 21Monday

[#77] 7Timer!-V3 development progress

2008年1月21日22:17　 7Timer!　评论/Comment.

The development of the new version is moving slowly forward now, over the recent days I’ve finished some scripts of the Auto-run Program (ArP), including the scripts related to the new Weather Chart section. The new feature of Weather Chart is the forecast time extend to 384 hours, or 16 days. There are other new features in plan, don’t worry — but just let me set the skeleton up before adding the muscles. Afterwards there will be 384-hour ”classical” forecast section, too. Stay tuned for updates.

Quanzhi

2008-Jan 5Saturday

[#76] 7Timer! — upgrade project status

2008年1月5日23:03　 7Timer!　评论/Comment.

Well, there has been nearly two months since my last statement of 7Timer!, and there are around a dozen emails coming for the new 7Timer!. So let me blow one now…

During the past two months, a few tests have been made up and down there. I decide to upgrade the model first (relatively easy work), and then after, I’ll go on creating a new website looking and a control package (this is a complex ballgame). I hope a test version of the new model can be released by the end of January. Hey — that’s not because I’m lazy! That’s just because a disadvantage of a school boy — final examinations.

I apologize for such a long delay (from 2007 into 2008), I hope the whole thing can go as a popular sentence on nowaday’s Chinese newspaper: “will be completed before the Olympic Game”.

Q.

2007-Nov 26Monday

[#75] Recent status of 7Timer

2007年11月26日18:19　 7Timer!　一条评论哦 || 1 Comment

Dear list,

Much of you may have notice the recent unsteadable behaviour of 7Timer, and I have received dozens of queries about this problem so far. As I was off from home for about three weeks, I was unable to do major examinations to see what went wrong. I apologize for your inconveniences.

Today I do some checks and it seems the problem is caused by limited disk spaces. I host a mirror of MPCORB database from Havard and the size of the database kept growing, so the weather data encount I/O errors while transmitting. Now I delete some files and release some space, similar problems may not revisit for maybe… a few months.

This problem will be permanently solved in the major upgrade of 7Timer. I know this upgrade project has been stay over my month for more than half a year, but there are too much things, plans, indeed. I could just apologize to those who had wait so long for the new 7Timer.

I’m now developing some modules of the Lulin Sky Survey pipeline, I have to put it before 7Timer (actually I do so for over half a year, as the pipeline is also a big project) as it’s more scientific valuable. And it’s true that 7Timer is not under manually upholding now, but it’s true again that 7Timer did not appear to have many problems. I’ve devote nearly all of my software developing time to the pipeline of Lulin Sky Survey. The extention of pipeline is expected to be finished around mid-December, and the 7Timer will be under my coverage before 2008, if all things go right. Well, I admitted I’m not good at time prediction. But this time I hope I have get it right through there…

Again, email me if you have any suggestions or problems.

Sincerely,

Quanzhi

P.S. For astronomers, don’t be upset about the repeat-delay of new 7Timer — Remember that C/2007 N3 (Lulin) (my discovery) will be brighten for possibly naked-eye observing in early 2009. Well, you cannot get something for nothing, so I’m happy to exchange the comet with the delay of the new 7Timer project :-p