Elite Observatory - Search your journal for potentially interesting objects, or notify you of new ones on the fly while exploring!

First off, many thanks for your wonderful tool! (that's from a dedicated hater of 3rd party tools :p)

I've just found an interesting bug, that you might want to investigate. On system entry I got this message form passive scanning (no FSS at this point in time):
2020-02-24 17:36:29 - Qiedau HF-Y c17-3 A 1 - Landable - Close ring proximity - Orbit: 1.884.781km, Radius: 3119km, Distance from ring: 26.081km

The only planet in system with a ring is the A9 instead. I can't imagine the app would know about this planet at this point and marking the A1 with "close ring proximity" is plain wrong. Any ideas what's going on here?
The asteroid belt is being seen as a "ring" in this particular case, and the first planet is close to its outermost edge.

This came up once before and was determined to be an odd quirk that the single concerned user at the time was willing to accept as still a noteworthy occurrence even though it was not likely to be that visually interesting. Though it's possible (but unlikely) that a belt cluster might be close enough to the planet to allow for some slightly different screenshots.

I'm still undecided on whether to filter these out or not.
 
The asteroid belt is being seen as a "ring" in this particular case, and the first planet is close to its outermost edge.

This came up once before and was determined to be an odd quirk that the single concerned user at the time was willing to accept as still a noteworthy occurrence even though it was not likely to be that visually interesting. Though it's possible (but unlikely) that a belt cluster might be close enough to the planet to allow for some slightly different screenshots.

I'm still undecided on whether to filter these out or not.

Yes I posted a picture of a gas giant from an asteroid cluster due to the same thing happening. It's quite rare, I have only encountered a couple myself. Because it's so rare I think it's worth keeping.
 
I have created a Discord server for Elite Observatory in case anyone wanted to engage a little more directly with me (and to keep my rambling about its development off of other people's discords :p). I expect it will generally be pretty slow there most of the time, but who knows.


edit: Oh, and I guess the discord server icon is also a preview of a possible new Elite Observatory application icon. :D
 
Oh that reminds me, I did find a flaw in the logic. It will trigger when you find a binary pair of gas giants. I'm not sure if there's a way to add a test for the parent object to be a star and that it's not in a binary orbit with another planet.
The direct parent object of a binary is a "null" object which might already be testable in custom criteria, but I'm not completely sure.
If someone else doesn't figure it out by the time I get home later this evening I'll look into it myself.

If the parent of a binary pair is "null," would a check for a parent Absolute Magnitude of greater than 1 (or whatever would be necessary) as another "and" criteria work since only stars have AM? You could also set a maximum arrival distance as another "and," depending on maximum "hot Jupiter" orbital distances. It may not eliminate binaries, but I bet it'd come damn close.

EDIT: On second thought, the arrival distance criteria would eliminate any HJ's not orbiting a primary body, so that should prolly be out.
 
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Hey Vithigar I just wanted to say this sounds perfect for me. I just started dipping my toes into exploration and I am constantly fascinated reading about other people's discoveries. Not having much experience and not really knowing what to look for its great to have a tool thatll help point out interesting things to me that I am sure I have been missing. Installing right now can't wait to see what it helps me notice.

Also very excited to just having read this:
In this update:

  • New Features
    • Codex data transmission to the Intergalactic Astronomical Union.
      This data is completely anonymous, containing only information that is found in CodexEntry journal lines (which isn't much). If you want to help a group of players catalogue the various biological and geological signals throughout the galaxy simply enable "Transmit Codex Discoveries to IGAU discovery catalog" in the settings window.
      The foundation of this change was added by @Elite-IGAU, so questions about the particulars of why they collect this data should be directed there.

I always wondered if me finding geos / bio etc would be helpful to anyone. Its cool to learn about IGAU and that using this will help distribute info. I already use EDMC and EDSM / EDDiscovery hoping to share data and help give back, this sounds like another great way.
 
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Hello again,Vithigar or anyone else who might know I tried looking through the links and the thread, is there a place that has definitions of the items in the description column of the app? Being new to exploration seeing things like EM (I'm assuming maybe Earth masses) are just making me wonder more about what they are, I'm assuming a possible answer is just google the terms and read about what they are in real astronomy and will (Have started doing that anyway. Just wasn't sure if there was a description page of everything the app will suggest and why it suggests them that makes it special).

Been using the app for a couple days, its great, minimalist and clean interface and is doing a nice job of giving me a heads up and letting me check out things I never would have known about, it's making me look up more about astronomy as I discover and is really enhancing that aspect of the game for me. Thank you for your work CMDR Vithigar.
 
The "EM" is only used in one of the sample custom criteria, and you are correct that it means "Earth Masses". I'm not sure what other terms used in the description column need explanation though. Maybe "jumponium", which is the in-game premium FSD boost synthesis. You'll have to clarify what others you need help with, since I'm assuming you don't need terms like "planet" and "orbit" defined.
 
The "EM" is only used in one of the sample custom criteria, and you are correct that it means "Earth Masses". I'm not sure what other terms used in the description column need explanation though. Maybe "jumponium", which is the in-game premium FSD boost synthesis. You'll have to clarify what others you need help with, since I'm assuming you don't need terms like "planet" and "orbit" defined.

Roger will post further questions (Next exploration trip probably). Wasnt sure if there would be lots of acronyms I would be coming across etc.
 
Where.jpg

Is this normal ?
 
Howdy! I have another small request for a tweak... and it really is small this time, I promise. ;) :D

When the TTS announces things related to rings, there's no pause in the name like there would be if a human speaks it. For instance, if "Body A 2" has an A-ring, it comes out as "Body A 2 A Ring" and then your brain has to parse out how much of that is the body identification, by which time I've missed what the discovery was. If it could insert a comma or hesitation, or something along those lines... more like: "Body A 2, A Ring", just a tiny pause, that would mean all the difference. Or maybe rearrange it to "Body A 2, Ring A".

Not a big deal. Just aiming for clarity as much as possible. ;)
 
Shouldn't be a problem. Not sure off the top of my head how much of that is already separate at that point in the code or if I'll have to parse it out, but either way can probably squeeze that into next release.
 
I don't know how the voice is integrated with Observatory, but I've used some TTS for video myself and adding a comma to the string works surprising well with most of them.
 
Recently switched to PC to get into some of these tools and this one is awesome! Still trying to figure all the ins and outs but I was wondering if it’s normal for Elite to minimize when something triggers EO?
I have pop ups and TTS turned on. Single monitor. Haven’t noticed the pop ups but Elite minimizes when the TTS starts reading out a discovery.
 
Recently switched to PC to get into some of these tools and this one is awesome! Still trying to figure all the ins and outs but I was wondering if it’s normal for Elite to minimize when something triggers EO?
I have pop ups and TTS turned on. Single monitor. Haven’t noticed the pop ups but Elite minimizes when the TTS starts reading out a discovery.
I disabled the pop-ups, the TTS alone doesn't mimimize E: D (at least on my PC, playing full screen).
 
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