VSX URL for direct access a star name?

Technology VSX
1

Hello,

ist there a way to access VSX to open a page like

https://www.aavso.org/vsx/index.php?view=detail.top&oid=10602

but using a star name instead of oid, something like name or ident ?
Or is there a way to first convert star name to oid ?

Thanks,
Thomas

2

Hi Tom,

Internally, VSX resolves all star names to OIDs, so it would be preferred if you determine OIDs and cache the results locally.

Please note that VSX is also available for download on Vizier. If you are going to be making many queries, I would recommend you download a copy instead as it will be considerably faster to use.

Brian

3

Hello,

Yes I meanwhile produced a small Python script to get the id from
https://www.aavso.org/vsx/index.php?view=results.get&ident=
using a html parser.

It’s nice to see all those data mining links etc. at a glance, you certainly don’t have that with a VizieR query ?

CS
Thomas

4

Hi Tom,

Yes, unfortunately the links to external entities is not captured in the version of VSX on Vizier.

If you are writing a new script, please be aware of the following items:

  • VSX will perminantly move from the url https://www.aavso.org/vsx to https://vsx.aavso.org in the next few months. The service is already running at the new URL so please use that instead.
  • Due to a significant increase in queries by bots over the last year, the new server has bot protection enabled. If you find your queries are getting blocked, I recommend you use Vizier to access the relevant information instead.
  • We intend to rewrite VSX and issue a new API later this year that will require API keys or authentication. That should, hopefully, resolve the bot issue.

Kind regards,
Brian

5

Ok thanks for info. Maybe you can please reply here and place a small note if API and API keys are ready, so that I and someone else who comes here via a search then knows.

Thanks,
Thomas

1 Like
6

Is there a new call to VSP also?
https://app.aavso.org/vsp/api/chart/

Thanks,
Paul Powell