Team Scientist
these are not the exact same images, they are different visits that are very close in time. you can tell they are different visits by looking at the image names:Originally Posted by karthikeyan
ccd02.46.0383.2467
ccd02.44.0383.2467
in this naming scheme, the 44 and 46 refer to the visit number.
Team Scientist
What kind of information would you like to know? Is it more the process that we go through or is it the math and physics behind the orbital calculations?Hi borncamp. Thanks for answering my questions!
Re. question no. 4 (how to get from a blob to a KBO) would it be possible to elaborate a bit on this? You could then put the explanation in a blog post, the FAQ or some similar place. I read that this project also has an educational component and I think a number of us would like to understand this process better. Some questions regarding this:
We essentially compare these images against each other to make sure it is something moving. One of us on the science team will look at the markings and determine if the marking is good or not, there has to be at least 3 markings (I think) close to the same location for it to even get reviewed as good (we see them all, we just automatically mark it as bad on the way in if it has few markings). This takes out the mistake markings, weather someone clicking randomly or a marking on a cosmic ray strike. If we have a good marking in the same location at different times then we say that it has to be a variable star blinking on and off. If there is a good transient marked in the image and another is not seen at the same spot (meaning it is not a variable star) we mark that differently in out database. From there, we know about how fast they should be moving so if we have 2 markings that are the right distance from each other over the right amount of time we have a program that will show us those images so we can link them up. However, we like to get at least 3 in a visit to make sure that it is not just 2 variable stars that are bright at the right times and spaced correctly.1. When you have a marked transient on an image, how do you tell if it is a KBO, a variable star, an asteroid or just a mistaken marking? I understand that you have a series of images of the same part of the sky. Do you then compare these images against each other (and how do you do this?) to see if the object moves?
Asteroids usually appear to be slightly streaked as they are moving much faster than KBO's, this is something that we can change in the review process. However, if one gets by, its not a big deal, we will be able to see if it is an asteroid after fitting an orbit to it and seeing that it is very close in.If it does move then it would seem to be either an asteroid or a KBO, but how do you tell the difference?
Yes it is possible but hard. If you have enough good measurements and the data is taken at opposition, you can get an orbit with fairly low errors after 4 or 5 days. However, longer arcs will make for much better orbit calculations so more is always better in this case.2. I understand that the images of the same area of sky are taken hours or perhaps a few days apart. Is it possible to determine an accurate orbit with images taken just a few days apart?
Much of this data on this site is taken close to quadrature (which maximum elongation but outside of Earth's orbit) we call it the 'confusion zone'. At this point asteroids and KBO's can appear to move in very weird ways if you do not know their orbital properties yet. Here is an illustration to try to show what Im talking about:3. Why is it more difficult to determine the orbital parameters of asteroids vs. KBOs? I would have thought it would be easier to determine orbits of things which move more in a few days than things that move less.
At this point of quadrature, asteroids can appear to move at the same rate as KBO's and they can both move in retrograde patterns which makes it very hard to start getting an orbit.
Yes we do check. You should not see any KBO's marked as asteroids, maybe the other way around (which is not as a big of an issue). When we mark something as an asteroid we do not consider it for first round MPC submission (as this project is focused on KBO's) or to look at as a NH candidate (because NH has already passed it). So, if you do see this, please bring it up and we will take another look at it. But this should not happen, once we have something as an asteroid, we usually have a pretty good orbit for it and can safely throw it out of the running for NH.4. Do you also check if marked asteroids might in fact be KBOs? Sometimes its hard to tell if a blob is round enough to qualify as a KBO.
It was that day.5. Is the SHIFT key not working on your keyboard?
Team Scientist
When we were still "Ice Hunters", the only things that were found in the data from the subaru telescope were found by the public via the website, so you do have a major contribution. But yes, someone does manually go over the results (meaning your clicks) after an automatic process has filtered some of the main issues out.Sorry to be a bother, but I have another question.
How big a help are our marking efforts? In the first image set, which I read somewhere was around 13,000 images, I noticed via the Gallery that about 4,400 transients had been marked. Without a detailed description of how our marked images are processed, I presume that all 4,400 marks must be manually checked out, one by one, by someone from the CosmoQuest team. Does this mean that our work basically reduces the initial filtering work of the CosmoQuest team by 2/3 rds?
Moderator
Thanks for explaining that, borncamp!
Member
We much appreciate these excellent explanations.
Member
The panel that showed our stats seems to have disappeared since last week I was on.
Established Member
Since the update last night, I've cleared my cookies as suggested and restarted my computer and my stats panel has failed to reappear as well.
Member
The "My Ice" statistics are missing from the search window. I re-logged on several times but it is not populating on the window. Did we have a software change or build that could have caused this? Thanks for your efforts in addressing this.
dennispattensr
Moderator
Hi dennispattensr, I moved your post to this thread. There was an upgrade last night.
And of course: Welcome to CosmoQuest!
Administrator
We had to temporarily remove them to speed up the site. I can explain this hopefully in a few hours, but at the latest by Saturday. So sorry to be cryptic.
-P
Member
Conceivably you could have wrote apologies in the region left by removing the stats. Even with a link to this thread Or a stickied "Issues with Ice investigators" thread would make more sense.
Moderator
Apologies for that from the science/build team...
Member
My stat is returned .
Great job to all the team.
Well done.
Cheers Gonano.
Member
Seconded.
Funnily enough, when there was no stats I was less perturbed about tagging uncertain objects. With stats one has loss aversion over diminishing ones marked:confirmed ratio. It'd be interesting to see if people tagged more when stats were down.
It's like psychology ontop of astronomy
Moderator
That's why I thought one could do psychological studies here...It's like psychology ontop of astronomy
Member
Did something happen to marked:confirmed earlier? I suddenly noticed I have more confirmed than marked....that can't be right surely...
Moderator
I'll try to find that out.
Administrator
Something clearly went BOINK! when we rebooted after the Amazon crash. Let me get Cory to fix.
Build Team
This and many other things will be fixed on a very large update Friday. Expect awesome things then.
Newbie
Does anyone know what the huge white blobs are with the black lines/blobs in the middle? I don't think they are transients because of the black lines/spots.
Moderator
They could be residuals from the subtraction process.
Member
this isn't the moon forum...
but supposedly looking upside down helps.
Member
They're the background stars (I think) which image processing attempts to block out. Seems to be, the bigger/brighter they are the harder it is to block them out.
Established Member
Have any papers been published, based on the results from Ice Investigators (or from its predecessor)? If so, what?
Newbie
This seems to be well over my head, but is creating a database for a new hope to build a computer that can navigate and calculate systems, facts, typology, and recurring functions. If so, is there eta on universal and cosmos dna. I am niave so laymans terms and equality is appreciated.
Order of Kilopi
I’m afraid I have to ask the same of you.
What does “eta of universal and cosmic dna “ mean?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As above, so below
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
