Asteroid Zoo Talk

FAQ

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin

    Add questions on the bottom. I'll be adding to this for some time.

    Common Questions:

    1. How are the images taken?

    The images are from the Catalina Sky Survey's Schmidt Telescope. They are typically 30 second exposures with 10 minutes between images. The images you are seeing are 10.7 arcminutes by 10.7 arcminutes with 2.51 arcseconds per pixel. The images are in V-band with a colored glass filter.

    There is variability in the time between images, but 10 minutes is pretty normal. The images are concentrated near the plane of the ecliptic - which makes sense since asteroids are mostly in the ecliptic and will at least cross it.

    2. Can we know where the images are on the sky?

    We are not currently providing that information. I will note that it has been determined for several of the images by interested people.

    3. Are you going to work on improving the #bad_set problem

    Yes. It is a significant concern. Right now, we have to balance improvements without breaking the system. We're working out why certain images get broken and we don't know quite yet (they do okay when done by hand).

    Posted

  • dudrea by dudrea

    1. Seing the contents of each, it's difficult to choose the pertinent forum (Help, Science,Chat) to write in. What rule can I use for that ?

    2. Ergonomy to marl the artifacts is poor. Are you going to improve that ?

    Posted

  • mrpsb by mrpsb

    Just out of interest, are the known objects in each image provided along with the dataset or are they picked up from a different source and marked on the images based on where an object "should" be?

    Posted

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin

    @dudrea : Well, I would say the Help is for "is regarding difficulty in a particular observation", Science for discussions of what you're looking at, and Chat would be focused on "I saw something that I think is interesting"

    That said, it's not a hard and fast rule.

    Second: We are collecting suggestions about what should be improved. Please understand that it's risky to alter a live project without breaking too much. So we're looking into what we can do without messing everything up.

    @mrpsb: The known objects are marked by where the object should be. The object list is generated by the minor planet center and has accuracy of better than a pixel for almost all the objects. If everyone always sees a given object - then they're very happy to know about it.

    Posted

  • mrpsb by mrpsb in response to Dr.Asteroid's comment.

    That's pretty cool, thanks 😃

    Posted

  • mrpsb by mrpsb

    Another one about existing asteroid circling while I think about it. When you get a faster-moving object like this http://talk.asteroidzoo.org/#/subjects/AAZ0001a45 does the circle expand to account for it tracking across a larger area? I've only seen reasonably small movements so far in known asteroids but curious what would happen if I stumbled on a known one moving like that.

    Posted

  • stonepenny by stonepenny

    'Guess what? you're the first person to see this set'
    how often do we get these? I've just had one, yet I know at least one person has done at least a months' worth of frames more than I have.... they posted a set a month ago that I recently posted, too, so if we're doing the same sets, how come I got the 'you're the first to see this set'? Any technical answers, please?
    Confused...

    Posted

  • stonepenny by stonepenny

    Is there a faster way of marking artefacts, and why do we need to?
    With mixed frames in a set, if some are from the set I just did, I'm not repeating myself, I see no point. I'll do my best with what's new, although sometimes that's not possible for asteroids, as there may be only one frame.
    I'm also having problems finding asteroids where the frames are cropped... I prefer to use play/slide fast manually, to catch movement - cropped frames throw this method, jumping about so much...

    Posted

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin in response to stonepenny's comment.

    With the very large number of sets available, we like to let you know when you get a one that nobody at AsteroidZoo has looked at. We retire sets (after "enough" people have looked at them) we bring new ones in.

    Each set must be looked at several times (one of the questions we're answering is how many times). That's how we leverage the strength of citizen science. People are darn good at finding things, and you're checking each other's work. So, if enough people say "no asteroid here" we're really sure that there isn't one.

    Conversely, if enough people say "there's an asteroid here" and even if the computers had NO IDEA - then that's a solid detection and we'll send it in.

    Posted

  • stonepenny by stonepenny

    thank you, makes more sense now. Exciting being the first to view a new set and find asteroids! (Some have been so big, I was surprised they were 'unknown'!)

    Posted

  • a349 by a349

    If you want to measure (test, check) our efficiency in discovering moving objects, I will suggest that you implement a set of artificial object at various magnitudes. You can then derive efficiancy rates per magnitude.

    It is time that you start presenting results. Did we discover any asteroid that the Catalina survey missed ??
    I will appreciate response.

    Posted

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin in response to a349's comment.

    We are working on making sure we provide correct results. I understand that you're eager to find out what's been going on - and I want to make sure that we're completely correct and reviewed before progressing to results.

    I'm absolutely sure that you would rather us take longer to ensure that the results are correct rather than retracting them.

    Posted

  • neta by neta

    Is there a way to adjust delay time of displaying the 4 pictures? Or to block a missaligned one out of a set of pictures?

    So far I'm helping me out with a vb-script like this (if someone is interested in this, just copy into editor and safe as vbs file)

    set ws = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

    msgbox "Please focus window of browser"

    for i = 1 to 96 'do this 96 times

    ws.SendKeys "1" 'press 1 to display frame 1

    wscript.sleep 55 'wait 55 ms

    ws.SendKeys "2" 'press 2 to display frame 2

    wscript.sleep 55

    ws.SendKeys "3"

    wscript.sleep 55

    ws.SendKeys "4"

    wscript.sleep 55

    next

    msgbox "Done"

    Posted

  • dudrea by dudrea

    Good but using key num (1 to 4) seems more simple. It's even possible to skip a bad frame by example typing 1 3 4 (or 4 3 1) and you can choose the speed

    Posted

  • calin_uio by calin_uio

    The VB Script from @neta is actually very useful, thank you! @dudrea, you don't need to use the keys anymore, that's the beauty of it. I made a few optimizations if anybody is interested:

    • save the content below into a local file called for example "asteroidzoo.vbs" (beware the extension)

      set ws = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

      ws.SendKeys "%{TAB}" ' return to parent window

      for i = 1 to 20 'repeat the process

        ws.SendKeys "1" 'press 1 to display frame 1
      
        wscript.sleep 80
      
        ws.SendKeys "2" 'press 2 to display frame 2
      
        wscript.sleep 80
      
        ws.SendKeys "3"
      
        wscript.sleep 80
      
        ws.SendKeys "4"
      
        wscript.sleep 80
      

      next

    • create a shortcut to this VB script from the quick link menu near Start by dragging it with the right mouse button to the Quick Links list.

    To use it simply work on asteroidzoo.org as usual. If you need the fast scrolling, simply click on the Shortcut.

    the VB scripts below simply "sends" the keypads 1 to 4 in rapid succession without a pause for 20 times.

    Posted

  • std.nrd by std.nrd

    There seem to be a lot of images where 10 minutes between frames is not enough time to see perceived motion. Either more frames or a longer duration would be much more useful. Most of the objects Ive found have moved only a few pixels between frame 1 and frame 4, so more time would be useful.

    Posted

  • jchrzastekcox.net by jchrzastekcox.net

    For the home observer, is there an optimal video card, monitor, and CPU specification?

    Posted

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin in response to std.nrd's comment.

    10 Minutes is the best time for finding Near Earth Objects - things like trans Neptunian objects move too slowly (most of the time) relative to the stars, but Catalina's mission is to find all of the potentially hazardous objects.

    Posted

  • IanGalaxyZoo by IanGalaxyZoo

    How do I review a set of images from the ones I looked at today please? I think I saw an exoplanet as the "asteroid" appeared to move round a star. Ian

    Posted

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    If you click the 'Return to Classifying' button in the upper right, then once on that page click 'Profile', you will find that what comes up is a list of the sets you have reviewed, with the most recently reviewed ones listed first -- 12 per page. You can then click on any of those to go to the chat page about that set where you can see all the frames for that set.

    Posted

  • lythamlife by lythamlife

    I understand the need for many contributors to be involved with the identification of potential asteroid candidates from the image data sets, but what's not quite so clear is what sort of feedback (if any) will be given to contributors confirming the successful identification of previously unknown asteroids. If it is the intention to give feedback, how and in what form will it take? Thanks

    Posted

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin

    We (the people responsible for AsteroidZoo) have been working on making sure our data analysis of your work is correct. We got hammered by a spacecraft delivery and are now working toward getting the results. Our intention will be to inform users about discoveries when we're sure that we can send the discoveries to the Minor Planet Center and verify the finds.

    Posted

  • Puppyhogg by Puppyhogg

    thanks for the update

    Posted

  • Barbalbero by Barbalbero

    Good morning.
    I am writing to ask you one maybe stupid question. I actively work in this project as well as in other one here in Zooniverse and in other projects using the platform Boinc. I know there are some projects (especially those using Boinc) which give some kind of badges which recognize the efforts done working in a specific project (these badges are given when a specific number of credits is obtained with the elaborations done). I thought something similar can be done with the projects in Zooniverse, also for Asteroid Zoo (for example, badges can be given according to the number of images analyzed, known and unkwown asteroids observed, artifact seen and so on). Do you think something like this is possible to do for this project?

    Posted

  • jgulvas by jgulvas

    How many sets have been produced in total? And how many sets are currently being scanned by citizen scientists?

    Posted

  • jgulvas by jgulvas

    So, if I am the first person to look over a set of frames and identify an asteroid,but one that has already been identified, then who identified it first? Are any sets ever seen for the first time by the Asteroid Zoo participants? Are new asteroids only discovered by participants who catch something that the first observers miss?

    Posted

  • dudrea by dudrea

    I mean it's possible to be the first to see a set of frame with an asteroid inside already seen before in another set of frame. Asteroids are moving 😉 Could be the response to your question.

    Posted

  • jgulvas by jgulvas in response to dudrea's comment.

    I see what you're saying; that there was an asteroid in a different shot of the same frame that wasn't there in the other frame. So you think the sky sections are photographed more than once? Of course. How often I wonder. Once though, I found a moving object on a set of frames and marked it. When I clicked finished, I was informed that I was the first person to see the set of frames. I thought it was an enormous coincidence that if I were the very first person to see the frames that they would contain an asteroid. I'm interested in how "raw" the data is. The ultimate experience would be to know that I, not a computer program, not someone part of the project, was the very first person to examine the set!

    Posted

  • artdent42 by artdent42

    Some known asteroids may have been known for 50 years, but we are the first to see them in these photo sets.

    Posted

  • dudrea by dudrea

    I wasn't meaning that "that there was an asteroid in a different shot of the same frame"

    Only that it's possible that an already known asteroid MOVE in the frame your'e observing into, coming of course from outside this frame. Could be the same if you detect a FMO in a new never observed frame : the plane (or anything causing the FMO) could be already known.

    Posted

  • jgulvas by jgulvas

    Thank you both for responding. So I found a known asteroid caught in one of the frame sets for the first time. So if I submit and then read that the FMO is a known asteroid, how could I be the first person to view the frame set as I was told? Even if I am informed that I have marked an until recently unknown asteroid, in order to tell me this, someone has to have known the object was in the frame set in the first place. Which means I was not the first person to see the set...

    Again, how raw is the data, the frame sets, that we see? Are we ever privy to sets that have in no way been scrutinized, whether for old asteroids or new?

    Posted

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    The images are marked on the set not because someone has viewed them before you, but because the location of each set is known and the time of day is also known. That information is run against the database of known asteroids and every set is able to be computationally flagged as containing a known asteroid without any human looking at that set. This calculation is saying that even if the image is overexposed, full of star bleed lines, artifacts, misalignment and fast moving objects, there is definitely an asteroid at this point because of the location and time based on the orbit of all known asteroids.

    These sets then get put on AsteroidZoo and if you are the first user here to see a set, you get this message. Taken in that context, this message is still correct. It is saying you are the first person on Asteroid Zoo to have seen this image set.

    I'm guessing that these 'known asteroid' images sets are set aside and mixed in with other sets with no known asteroids, so that we get a nice mixture of sets with no known asteroids then an occasional set with a known asteroid to help us make sure we are reviewing these sets correctly. I say this because when this project started, you would often get the 'You are the first person to see this image' message fairly often. When you were done, you often just went into the next image set and there was no 'Known Asteroid' message. But in the last 3 months, the only time I see this message is when it is a known asteroid set (implying to me that there is a subset of 'known asteroid' image sets in reserve that is still being mixed into the sets we review from time to time).

    Today, if you get this message, you can be pretty confident that you are looking at a set with a known asteroid somewhere, but as soon as they add more image sets for us to review, this will no longer be the case.

    As for whether others have looked at the larger images before us, it should make no difference whether they have or not they have been seen for what the purpose of this project is . The question is whether volunteers can identify asteroid missed by others (either researchers or computer algorithms). From what I can tell, every one of these sets will be reviewed to flag known asteroids by comparing them to a database, but it is at that point this project begins. The goal was not to have us find asteroids on image data that no one had time to review before, but to see if we can find asteroids that are commonly missed by traditional analysis methods.

    Posted

  • jgulvas by jgulvas in response to CTidwell3's comment.

    Hey, I didn't know that. Thanks!

    Posted

  • grums by grums

    To expand on a comment by stonepenny, marking some artifacts seems pointless when they are clearly the result of (say) a row or column failure in the detector array, a "sparkle" due to stimulation of a single pixel (or small group of pixels) or a moving circular mote (darkened area). These patterns tend to move in an irregular way (vertically and horizontally) from frame to frame so I guess they are probably occuring at the same points on the detector array but that the maintenance of the telescope alignment to the fixed stars is being done electronically rather than physically (is this assumption correct?). In each case I suppose this is due to soft errors resulting from cosmic ray (or particles resulting from local radiocative sources) impacting the detector array??

    Posted

  • Ocean73 by Ocean73

    Hi. If I discover an asteroid, would i get any feedback later on? It would be nice to know what has been discovered so to speak.

    Tnx.

    Posted

  • faedrus by faedrus

    Noticeable artifacts like bleeds typically occur in all 4 frames. Do I need to mark them in every frame?

    Posted

  • jacekm_pl by jacekm_pl

    Hello
    Is there a chance to be noticed as a discoverer when someone notice an undiscovered asteroid?

    Posted

  • djsimister by djsimister in response to jacekm_pl's comment.

    Yes. As a contributor and discoverer in waiting you should be acknowledged in full (along with any others who may have marked and highlighted the same one) Although it does take a long long time, (years in truth) for all /any follow analysis which has to take place and completed, then, if officially declared as a new discovery, Your name will be / should be up officially as one of those who brought it home.
    "This acknowledgment should be the reward and thank you for all your hard work and for all the classifications you have completed ( in my case many thousands) should be at the forefront of any or all citizen science projects. However, on a slightly negative note, its importance as i have described appears to have diminished and has got a bit lost and forgotten about as the zooniverse has grown into the giant it is today. Which is a real shame because the positive incentive to give it the time it deserves has all but gone it seems. Being acknowledged makes getting involved so appealing and special and if you get a positive hit then it should come for you too, hopefully, eventually!
    hope this helps.
    Dean

    Posted

  • jacekm_pl by jacekm_pl

    Yes thank you.

    Posted

  • PreJhTrg by PreJhTrg

    Hi all, being new here, I wanted to ask a few questions 😃
    -I guess there's always the possibility (although less likely) of getting subjects containing a known comet. If we get such a set of images, it will be notified that the images contains a known comet, right?
    -Will Asteroidzoo ever have its own news blog, like some of the other Zooniverse projects?
    -Will a list of candidate asteroids be listed on the Asteroidzoo website before they are officially confirmed (or rejected)?
    Thanks.

    Posted

  • Freethesouls by Freethesouls

    I think a skip button would be nice for all of the zooniverse science projects or some. And a feature like "Be a martian" by NASA where one can write a short note of what seems to be interesting in the pic. Just a box to write notes in.
    I think a chat room for would be nice.

    Tom (FREE THE SOULS)

    Posted

  • a0085926 by a0085926

    hi, i just joined this project recently. i would like to ask why asteroids appear coloured in the 'cycle' mode? is it because of its motion that causes a doppler colour shift?

    Posted

  • AstroTinker by AstroTinker in response to a0085926's comment.

    a0085926,
    Sorry, not a doppler shift, just image magic. I know the 4 images are flashed very fast one after the other, infinite repeat. I think the rest of how it works is something like this: on each image the white is given a color, for example the first set might have the first 4 colors of the 7 color spectrum (could be 3, or 257, I don't know), in sequence, so image 1 gets color A, 2 gets B, 3-C, 4-D. On the next repeat, the color sequence continues, but there are only 3 left, so 1 gets E, 2-F, 3-G, 4-A. Third repeat, 1-B, 2-C, 3-D, 4-E, and so on.
    The computer flashes them fast enough that where white shows on an image (stars, noise, etc.) in exactly the same position in every frame, the colors (as lights) merge to white. Anything NOT in exactly the spot on the other images does not show all 7 colors= white, so it equals some other color, slowly sequencing through the colors. It is easiest to see this looking at the 'fixed field defects' (#ffd) [which are most often a round black spot similar to a star, that appears to move not in a line, but in a pattern like an inverted T or Y. ffd's are something that moves with the camera(like a dust spot on the lens) when the telescope moves from one image frame to the next.] You can see how the 4 spots slowly cycle through all the colors. This is also why some noisy images show up in the color cycle with lots of 'glitter', as the noise spots are different in each frame. All the same thing, but when you spot an asteroid, the color-changing spots are in an exact line, with exactly identical spacing.

    Posted

  • a0085926 by a0085926

    What is the significance of identifying artifacts in the images?

    Posted

  • AstroTinker by AstroTinker in response to a0085926's comment.

    The discussions: Marking Artifacts and How are artifact reports used? may be of some help.

    Posted

  • stonepenny by stonepenny

    Any way of knowing when the photo sets were taken, please?

    Posted

  • hightower73 by hightower73

    Yes there is, on the image, right click on your mouse/touch pas if using pc/laptop and use view image info,

    here is an example

    http://asteroidzoo.s3.amazonaws.com/CSS/703/2012/12Apr13/azoo/01_12APR13_N18063_0001-88-scaled.png

    first bit 703/2012/12Apr13 was when it was takenm 7th to the 12 of april 2013

    next bit 01_12APR13 was when it was given to asteroid zoo

    thats how i understand it

    maybe if im wrong, someone will correct me

    Posted

  • delenaj by delenaj

    I've found three possible asteroids on one set of images, but it will only let me mark one of the possible asteroids. Is there a way to mark more than one and I'm just missing it?

    Posted

  • hightower73 by hightower73 in response to delenaj's comment.

    Yes what you do is once you have marked your 1st one, press the asteroid button again and then mark, if you wish to do a 3rd, press again and so on, once you have completed it, press the bottom continue button

    Posted

  • max32max2002yahoo.com by max32max2002yahoo.com

    If I found something I regard as a possible asteroid - should I do anything else except clicking the "Asteroid" button and marking it as precisely as possible on every frame?
    Do I have to post it anywhere, or just click "Continue" and work on another images set?

    Posted

  • hightower73 by hightower73

    quite a few discuss it, simply because they can claim it as a first seen, or thats it known about, however there is no rule to say that you have to do this, so you can do either

    Posted

  • merkosh by merkosh

    Just curious ... I've participated in IceHunters, and as far as I can remember they used to feed "test imagesets" into the database every now and then ...

    These test imagesets were made up from real images w/o any intersting objects and enriched with articial objects of varying identification difficulty. With those test images the researchers could "calibrate" the findings and measure the sensitivity of the approach. After processing an image, the user got a hint that this was a test image and info where the faked objects had been placed. I found that feature interesting, because it sharpened my visual skills ...

    Do you use such image sets, too ? I'd appreciate that ...

    Posted

  • hightower73 by hightower73

    no test images here, they are all as you see them

    Posted

  • Zanna640 by Zanna640

    Are we supposed to mark star bleeds? And if so, on all 4 images? Flat fields and bad pixel columns on all 4 images too?

    Posted

  • MvGulik by MvGulik in response to Zanna640's comment.

    I'm generally a bit unsure about that to. But ... One way to deal with it would be to only mark star-bleeds (or anything else that remains in the same relative location in all other frames) on only one frame, and mark things that have no general fixed position in all frames, like bad pixels, on all four frames.

    Personally I don't really see any need, or usefulness, in marking stuff like star-bleeds. As its not something that is hard to visually locate in a image. Just Hashtag-ing them, if you like, seems way more useful.

    Posted

  • renastro by renastro

    Hi to all, I hope this is the right place to ask this, can someone tell me how the "known object" of that site work? I noticed that appears only known asteroid that is older than 2006. I see a lot of images and no one have an asteroid that have 2007 in his name, Do you agree with this? I don't know if images archive have only marked asteroids that is knowed at the time of the photos or what? If is like this there are a lot of asteroids that is currently known at MPC (discovered after 2006) but results like new object for Asteroid Zoo, or not.

    And, it happened to someone to spot a comet instead of an asteroid and wht do in this case?
    Thank you all. Simone.

    Posted

  • hightower73 by hightower73

    Hello simome, the simple answer is, all the images vary in date from around 2002 to 2003, a lot of the images have never been seen before by anyone except of those that are doing this project. if you wish to know when your photo was taken exactly, load the frame set and right click on the image and copy the loction address, paste that to notebook and the date in the address, remember its in an american format so the date will be something like 12-29-2002 for example. becasue of this, any asteroids found are either known to date, or are unknown ( thats my understanding ), so when you see "your the first to see this image " you really are the 1st person to see this image, as for for comets, i do belive there was a post where asteroidzoo did find a frame set with a comet in it ( and if my memeory is correct, it was huge! ) and i would believe that if you did find a comet that was unkhnown ( which is entirely possiable ) that you would get to name it as you would with a asteroid.

    I hope this helps and if im wrong, if someone would correct me i would be grateful

    Posted

  • renastro by renastro in response to hightower73's comment.

    Ok! Thanks a lot!

    Posted

  • MvGulik by MvGulik

    Corrections:

    • Most, if not all, actively used images (on Azoo) are from 2012. (seen so far: 12JAN..12JUL,12DEC)
    • Dates in the CSS image path/name are in the form: "12JUN23" ergo: "YYMMMDD"
      (np)

    (More, Azoo unrelated, information can be found at the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) main site, as that is the source of the images used at Azoo.)

    On the apparent limited range of known asteroids on Azoo I have no knowledge.
    One thought here is that, if that's the case, it might be related to the rate of asteroid discovery's over time. But that idea seem a bit thin. ... Did run into a nice video, from 2012, about asteroid discovery rate.

    Posted

  • dosey by dosey

    Mighty funny goings on when I signed in tonight to do some Asteroid zoo!

    I clicked on "4 up" for my first image and got only one full size pic. But when I marked the first artifact, and there were about nine, the image showed the circle that suggests earlier artifacts had also been marked on the other three that were not showing. Is there a problem? Was I logged into someone else's work?

    Posted

  • MvGulik by MvGulik in response to dosey's comment.

    Your not making any sens, at least not to me.
    (The classifying page seems to be working just fine on this end.)

    On top of that I don't think Azoo-Set comment's are/where intended to be used to talk/comment about anything other than stuff that's directly related to what is visible in that particular Azoo-image-Set. (Ref: AAZ000gtdv)

    Posted

  • Kishu by Kishu

    Hi, I would like to know whether there has been any case till date where a person have been officially credited with finding an asteroid which he/she marked on Azoo ? What kind of acknowledgement can one expect if one actually finds an unknown asteroid ? Can I get a reference to where the rules for the same are described ? I am personally pretty much enthusiastic about finding unknown asteroids in any case, but it will certainly make it much more interesting if I know that I'll be informed/acknowledged for the same. Thanks!

    Posted

  • hightower73 by hightower73

    At this time, your questions need a few answers.

    1.... the simple answer is no not yet ! we have been waiting for well over a year for our work to accepted my the MPC but to date there has always been errors in the plotting and therefore rejected.

    2... no idea as that is connected to question 1

    3... The best place is the MPC however, as a general rule of thumb, once an asteroid has been found, the MPC give it a temporiary number, then study it for 6 months and confirmed its an asteroid, then 6 months after that its put in the catolouge for new asteroids, you then have to apply to the MPC for naming it, this is then looked at when they have a general meeting, ( every 6 months ) your request is then decidided by the panel and then a message sent to you in writing, you then have to wait for thier next catolouge to come out for the name to be offically recorded. so you could be looking at 2 years. its not a short process.

    so as it stands, some of us have been here almost 2 years and yet to have asteroids confirmed by the MPC, this process should speed up as the site gets the problems ironed out, but to be very realistic, expect 3 years from finding and your name appearing in the catolouge.

    Posted

  • Kishu by Kishu in response to hightower73's comment.

    Hi Hightower73, thank you very much for the answers, I get the point. I assume we can use this site's reference as proof for our findings. Yeah, it'd be great if the overall process can be made much shorter. I am curious as to what are the hurdles being faced for the same, may be citizens can be used to help in that too. Anyway, thanks a lot!

    Posted

  • MrBill by MrBill

    I'm new to this project and I'm concerned by what I have read in discussions that asteroids that may have been detected on the site are not being recognized by any official organization (MPC, other?). If that is the case, other than the challenge of trying to find potential asteroids, what is the point of this project? Sorry if this is a negative question!!

    Posted

  • MvGulik by MvGulik in response to MrBill's comment.

    Other: The "Minor Planet Center" (MPC) is the, one and only, official world wide submission point/site for reporting potential new asteroids/comets/etc (minor planets).

    Recognizing: Its not that MPC is not Recognizing stuff. The problem is that Azoo's automation process of determining the potential asteroid sky location (cq: its potential track) is, in still to much cases I guess, not making the submission grade to be accepted by the MPC.

    The Point: Is highly relative and subjective in my view.

    • If your target is to officially find a new asteroid .... your in for a long wait. (see hightower73's point 3)
    • If your interested in learning all kind of stuff related to scanning the sky's. ... Azoo is a nice honeypot.

    A nice read, I think, is one of the MPC blog post: asteroid-mining-and-planetary-resources-our-take-on-it (July 9, 2012)

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  • MvGulik by MvGulik

    Feel some additions might be useful.

    MPC submission rules are set very strict for a reason. Less accurate input-data will also mean less useful asteroid orbital prediction output-data. (for a trip down the belly of the beast ... see Guide to Minor Body Astrometry)

    This is where, I think, Azoo has underestimated the task at hand, by trying to pull accurate-enough data from single night observation sets (with a general maximum time-separation of ~30 minutes), while the general MPC default is to have at least a day/~24h separation between consecutive observations(-sets).
    (For ~0.5h you need to be ~48 times more accurate than for ~24h to meet the MPC grade. ... I think. 😃 )

    Or: The bigger time/space separation there is between consecutive same-asteroid observations, the better, and more useful, the data is going to be. But, of course, this becomes harder the farther a given asteroids is from Earth (slower virtual sky movement).

    Better detection/automation: Take a peek at the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) for why, better than now available, asteroid detection processes/algorithms are imperative.
    (Note that this is the main target of the Azoo project, "better automated asteroid detection". Anything else is, for better or for worse, icing on the cake.)

    What if Azoo fails at this ... Well, at some point the classifying data they have collected should become available to other scientist. So there is still a change something will come from this.


    ~ Oops: fixed LSST typo.
    ~ Fixed mental time-span related hiccup.

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  • CuriousScientist4722 by CuriousScientist4722

    Hi, I'm curious if we will ever know if the asteroid we marked was confirmed. And if so, do we get to become 'coauthor' or something like that when you guys write a scientific paper. Will we ever know if we found an asteroid? I really want to know if I'm actually contributing and if i actually found something. Thanks, its so much fun to do this!

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  • nicro46 by nicro46

    This is exactly what all of us who are working to progrtto, from the outset, we would like to know. unfortunately today no certainty!

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