As a no-profit association, skylive is born few years ago, and i was one of the founders. Skylive was not i my idea, it was Ivan that invented it years before i join, but when i joined it skylive start to grow and get an official status of no-profit legally recognized association.

When i joined skylive, there was only one observatory in sicily, the server side was running on an home ADSL connection, was written in
delphy and running on a windows pc. The client was also written in delphy, and was windows-only.

The protocol was confusing, and the system was not working so well. Not that i don’t admire the effort to first write those things by Ivan, that isn’t a coder but just an amatorial self-made man.

Anyway, i use linux, and i’m a big fan of the free-software and the open source world. So, when i first meet Ivan, i proposed to re-write whole things and make it cross-platform.

Some years ago i was assuming the role of chief programmer and coder coordinator of the project, and skylive-ng ( a rewrite of the old client ) was born, in python, cross-platform. The protocol was the same old one, with some addition, and the server also was the same. So, the new skylived was also born, in python with twisted. A complete rewrite of the server, moved on a hosted dedicated server on a professional facility.

Things start to become better, and skylive start to grow, other observatories agree to link with the network, and a lot of new things where added to both client and server, things like real-time online speech become real, better management of telescopes also become real and so on.

We where working great, and the skylive project become more and more professional and amazing.

Two years ago i started do be less reliable from the skylive perspective cause of personal issues, my job and my personal life has the precedence, and very few spare time remain to dedicate to the project.
The developent was stalling, but a lot of things remain to do: a new protocol, new features and some fixes for long waited features not really working. Some new people come in the staff, and one of those is, at least oficially, a programmer.

Sadly we where absolutely incompatible, i prefer open code and python, it prefer closed code and java, i see windows things like a hell, he see windows things like a heaven, i care about some nerdish things like the way to follow, he’s not.

At some point, he come with the idea to totally rewrite whole things another time, and he do it, withouth collaboration with me, it just do it the way he things has to do. My role of developers coordinator was only an empty word.
As i was not having enough time to impose my vision, he start to hijack the developement of the whole things. Nothing bad with this if only the new developement doesn’t trash the hard work already done in last years and if doesn’t it bad pratices. The result is:

– The new server is running on a dedicated linux server, but it is written in delphy and running under wine (!)
– The new client is written in delphy and is running only on windows
– The “alternative” client for osx and linux is a web based one, written in java, and it doesn’t work 3 days out of 4
– Some of the new features long waited are implemented, but some features of the “old” system are not. A lot of the features long eaited on the old system are not implemented
– There is a new protocol, something better than the old one, but it remain not released and it isn’t exactly the heaven of the protocols.

Meantime this new coder get arrogance and superior attitude versus me, not that i’m sweet with him, and as i don’t agree with the new system, i was saying “i will wait when your system will crash, i will seat at the river border waiting the dead man passing away, and i will come back to start to code a things as it has to be done”.

This is one years ago. Few days ago, someone in the staff mailing list was saying “Franco, i don’t like your status, you must choose, in or out”. I choose out.

maybe one of those days i will also write what next about my observatory and my future projects…

No tags

Today i received a Mikrotik Routerboard 493G, and i’m trying to use it with openwrt.

Basically using the same method of my previous post for rb450g it boot and a lot of things are working out of the box.

I’ve tryed also to install openwrt on nand, and it seem to work. So, what doesn’t work?
* Networking: the ethernet ports aren’t working.
* nand partially working: it seem that won’t save anything, you will loose any change after reboot.
* wireless: i have also a mikrotik minipci wifi card, lspci says it’s an ath9k, but it doesn’t seem to work ok.

Now, i’ll try to gettings things working.

For the networking, the rb493g isn’t so different from the rb450g. It uses the same switch chip, but it has two ar8316 instead of
one like in the rb450g.

As first step, i’ve tryed to make at least one of the two working applying this patch:

rb493g.patch

It seem to partially work: i can use 4 ports out of 9 on the board using this patch.

To be continued…

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this is a 2xH filter + 1xG filter + 2xB filter + 1xL filter 900 seconds exposures with the takahashi sky90 apo with a sbig st8xme telescope number 1 of the skylive network. Stacking done with Astrobuffer, just a little color calibration with gimp.

Exposures and elaboration by Franco (nextime) Lanza

astronomia, nebulas, nebulose, skylive

Di recente tutti i giornali hanno parlato del fatto che a brevissimo sara’ possibile parlare con la pubblica amministrazione con la PEC, Posta Elettronica Certificata. In pratica uno strumento che permette di gestire delle email in maniera pienamente comparata, per la legge, a una cara vecchia raccomandata con ricevuta di ritorno cartacea.

Se da un lato la notizia potrebbe anche sembrare positiva, in fondo si tratta di passare alla digitalizzazione della raccomandata, evitare code, tagliare (almeno in teoria) costi all’amministrazione pubblica ma anche all’utente, e tante altre belle cose. In effetti pero’ gia’ tanti sono i dubbi espressi su tale strumento da molti diversi esperti di vari settori sia legali che del mondo IT, come ad esempio il fatto che sia un sistema esclusivamente Italiano, piuttosto che con argomentazioni riguardanti la reale sicurezza in termini di affidabilita’ di chi offre il servizio piuttosto che sulla privacy per il mantenimento dei dati inviati sui server per lungo tempo e molte altre argomentazioni, tutte piu’ o meno valide.

Tralasciando pero’ tutti i vari aspetti tecnici pro o contro la PEC, ci sono alcuni dubbi che, personalmente, mi fanno riflettere e pensare che forse non e’ cosi’ una buona cosa dotarsi di PEC almeno per ora.

Pensiamo alla vecchia raccomandata. Tu la spedisci, il postino la consegna alla persona dall’altro lato, che deve prenderla di persona ( o comuqnue qualcuno deve garantire per lui la ricezione firmando la ricevuta ), e solo in quel caso la conferma di ricezione viene inviata a te che sei il mittente. Se il ricevente si rifiuta di firmare, o semplicemente e’ in vacanza e non si reca poi in posta a riceverla, non ci sara’ nessuna conferma perche’ effettivamente non e’ stata ricevuta dal destinatario.

Nella PEC cosa succede?
Tu invii una mail, il server sul quale e’ mantenuta la casella mail del destinatario la riceve e a te viene confermata la ricezione. Ma il destinatario la ha realmente ricevuta? o magari non apre mai la posta perche’ e’ in viaggio per 2 anni sabbatici attorno al mondo? Magari state pensando “e che mi frega, tanto meglio, io ho la prova di ricezione comunque”. Ma se siete voi che siete andati in vacanza?

In poche parole il destinatario da un lato NON puo’ rifiutarsi di riceverla, dall’altro da conferma di ricezione anche se in realta’ non l’ha ancora letta, e magari non la vedra’ e non sapra’ nemmeno mai di averla ricevuta.

Facciamo un’altra ipotesi. Avete preso una multa, avete dimenticato di pagarla. Vi viene mandata una raccomandata che intima di pagare entro 30 giorni dalla ricezione, pena il raddoppio della multa, e voi vi state godendo beati una vacanza ai tropici di 45 giorni.

Con il vecchio sistema, tornate a casa, trovate la cartolina che vi dice che c’e’ una raccomandata in posta da ritirare, ci andate, la ritirate, e avete da quel momendo 30 giorni di tempo per pagare la multa senza ulteriori penali.

Con la PEC tornate, trovate l’avviso in mail, e vi accorgete di essere gia’ in ritardo con il paamento di almeno 15 giorni, perche’ il conteggio dei 30 e’ iniziato nel momento che la PEC e’ stata recapitata nella vostra casella e non quando l’avete effettivamente vista voi.

Insomma, siamo davvero sicuri che sia cosi’ una bella cosa?

informatica, pec

Here is the  light curve of a transit of the exoplanet XO-3b, done by analyzing in comparative photometry 200 exposures with r filt, 2×2 binning and 45 sec of exposure, 10 mediated dark frames, 10 mediated flat frames, all done from the skylive telescope number for. The seeing was measured as 1.5 at 3×3 binning, the exposures are a little out of focus cause in hour experience with this telescope can help to get better (more precise and sensible) results in photometry.

Exposures done from 16:30 and 20:00 UT Time yesterday, 9 january 2010.

Exposures done by: Ivan Bellia, Franco Lanza, Aldo Pucciarelli

Data reduction: Ivan Bellia

Here the resulting light curve:

XO-3b transit light curve

Here the field of view used for retriving data:

Field of view of XO-3b

astronomia, skylive