This week we are proud to launch version 1.0 of WhatsUP. This is small app which provides On Sky (our education observing interface) with a list of suggested observing targets. This list has been curated by me (Edward Gomez) and other members of LCOGT education team and provides beautiful examples of over 400 different types of object which can be seen in the Universe. Everyone observing with On Sky (over 800 people currently) has seen this app, working hard behind the scenes to provide you with interesting and exciting things to observe.
The software was written by me in partnership with Laurent Paoletti (from the web development company Providenz). This partnership was only possible because WhatsUP is open source (you can find all of the source code on GitHub) and Laurent kindly volunteered his time, experience and skill as a Django developer.
This only happened because I gave a short 5 minute introduction to LCOGT at DjangoCon Europe 2015, in Cardiff. There was a huge amount of interest from the 400+ Django developers in the audience not only about LCOGT and astronomy but also in helping with some of the software we are writing for astronomy. As a result I created an open source policy for LCOGT and made available a selection of our projects which people could contribute to.
I'm looking forward to continuing to work in collaboration with Laurent and owe him a big vote of thanks!
