Asteroid Zoo Talk

8/27/2014 Update In AstreroidZoo

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin

    Hello everyone!

    Well, I want to apologize for being offline for a bit - we're in the middle of preparing a spacecraft for delivery to our launch system. This has required pretty much every single person in a company-wide effort to get it done. For example - we're doing a thermal vacuum cycle on the spacecraft which takes 24/7 attention to monitor the temperatures and run testing of systems at hot and cold situations.

    We'll be delivering in early September, after that expect service to resume.

    Thank you for your patience!

    Posted

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

    Thanks very much for the information!
    We will wait for the news (I hope good) about our discoveries made studying the online images.

    Posted

  • nadirt by nadirt

    I hope with our help this project will discover new asteroids.

    Posted

  • calin_uio by calin_uio

    the Catalina Sky Survey discovered only days ago a house-size asteroid that passes very close to Earth:
    https://twitter.com/RandomSpaceFact/status/508680536005439488/photo/1

    Posted

  • proxima1 by proxima1

    I've been doing 50 to 150 sets/day since day 1, and have a challenge with a young friend as who can find the most objects this month. So have a lot of ideas to polish up the Asteroid finding experience:

    1. Be able to re-examine a set in the original viewer. Having two separate kinds of viewers is a little annoying. (the main viewer,
      and the one used to look back at previous sets from the profile
      page)

    2. Running totals:
      *How many sets has a person examined
      *How many asteroids/potential asteroids they flagged
      *How many people have actually viewed that set?
      *Leader board for the top hunters (even though of course, this can be easily gamed, I suspect most will avoid that).

      These could be both cumulative and perhaps broken down to
      totals/week as well

      Misc data

      *RA/Dec/field width of a particular image set.

    3. Viewing

      A much higher speed “play” option. Right now it seems to be about .5 secs each frame. Too slow to really use well. I drag the slider
      back and fourth with each frame about .1 secs. Going both directions
      avoids the annoying jump that happens when Play goes from frame four
      back to one.

    4. Have a way to flag bad sets. When flagged, the set is removed from
      any searches and is sent back to AsteroidZoo World HQ for review.

    Thanks guys, this is a lot of fun!

    Posted

  • CTidwell3 by CTidwell3

    @proxima1 - there is a running total for yourself, though it is really a zooniverse feature vs something easily seen here. While on the classification tool, click on the globe symbol in the upper right corner. This will take you to a zooniverse page asking you to log in. Once logged in, it shows a count of submissions to all zooniverse projects, including AsteroidZoo.

    Posted

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin

    And... we're back. I expect to able to focus a lot more attention.

    We were almost ready to deliver our first satellite and then there was a problem with the deployer on the ISS.

    http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-iss-on-orbit-status-4-september-2014.html

    So, that has slowed us up a bit, but certainly allows more time for other things. I will begin catching up.

    Thanks for your time and patience!

    Posted

  • Barbalbero by Barbalbero

    Good Morning.
    Any news about our possible discoveries? I cannot wait to have some details about the results of the efforts made by the people working for Asteroid Zoo, and I hope my contribution was useful with new discoveries of asteroids

    Posted

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin

    We are currently working through that. With a spacecraft delivery, everyone who could perform this analysis was involved in finishing the programming of the spacecraft.

    We're recovering from that and I will update as soon as I can.

    Posted

  • Barbalbero by Barbalbero

    Thanks for the reply. I hope everything is ok with the spacecraft!

    Posted

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin

    Currently, the spacecraft is sliding through the process to go into space. I'll keep this post live for updates.

    Posted

  • Barbalbero by Barbalbero

    I wish all the best for the spacecraft! We will wait for updates about it and about our work here on Asteroid Zoo.

    Posted

  • dennispattensr by dennispattensr

    Anything new? I too would like to see some feedback. If we are being useful maybe a percent verified or just a note for common misidentified objects.

    I spend a lot of time marking the four-point artifacts on many of these pics. I would think there would be an automated method to eliminate these since they are in an easily recognizable diamond-type pattern.

    Hope the best for your spacecraft and launch.

    Posted

  • jgulvas by jgulvas

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

    Posted

  • Dr.Asteroid by Dr.Asteroid scientist, admin

    A quick note for folks: We lost the spacecraft that was on the Antares spacecraft. It's not a critical issue for the company, but certainly a bit of a setback.

    I've been prepping for launch and I should have more time available now.

    Posted

  • djsimister by djsimister

    Really sorry to hear your news Dr A.
    Was watching this on a live feed. Quite a dramatic and sad scene. One can only hope for a bit more positive consistency soon with all / any of these new age space bound vehicles. And not just taken off to deliver takeaway food to the ISS guys either! Cause there's an ever increasing pile building up of new discoveries of all kinds out there that we need to start visiting or look closer at.
    BTW....I'd like to say A positive welcome back to you.

    Posted

  • Barbalbero by Barbalbero

    I am really sorry to hear the news about the spacecraft.

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Terribly sorry to hear that, Doc. 😦

    We'll certainly look forward to seeing you around Talk more, if you have additional time now, but certainly not at that cost.

    Good luck in rebounding from the setback; please keep us posted!

    Posted

  • Barbalbero by Barbalbero

    Hi to all
    I have just one question about the status of the research in Asteroid Zoo. Did the Administrators already send some of the images we analyzed to the Minor Planet Center in order to confirm possible asteroids discovered? How long do we need to wait before we receive replies from the Minor Planet Center?
    Thanks in advance for the reply.

    Posted

  • nadirt by nadirt

    No one seems to care about this. They just train their detection software.

    Posted

  • dbarak by dbarak

    Hello everyone,

    Today is my first day with Asteroidzoo, and so far I believe I've had at least three sets of images with an asteroid. Now my question is... what are the odds that I'd find THREE asteroids in one set of images? I've got a set of four images, and there are three objects that show up in each of the four images, and each object has moved in a linear path.

    I'm prepared to be wrong about this of course. : )

    enter image description here

    Posted

  • grums by grums

    They're some of the clearest images of potential asteroids I have seen but I have only been at this a week or so. I expect 3 in one set is fairly rare.
    How did you capture the frame set at full size? That would be useful. After posting a find I have not found a way to review previous images except by writing down the the code then reviewing on the reduced size images without the same view facilities.

    Posted

  • dbarak by dbarak

    Hi Grums,

    I just did four screen captures (which automatically saves at actual screen size), one of each frame, and combined them as four layers in Photoshop. Once I had them in layers I just made sure they were in the right order and then exported it as an animated GIF. I did all this before submitting the finished analysis though, otherwise I don't think I would have been able to go back to do it. I was just lucky to have the foresight to do this before submitting. I'm usually much more impatient and probably would have thought of it after it was too late. ; )

    I was using a Mac, so command-shift-3 creates a screen capture file; with Windows it's alt-print screen which usually puts the screen capture in memory, and from that point it can be pasted into a file - Photoshop, Paint, Word, etc.

    I know that at least one of these is a confirmed asteroid, based on the message I received when I submitted it. I don't know what part of the sky this is, and I don't know the field of view, so I wonder if the other two dots could be satellites. I hope they're all asteroids, but I figure the odds are low and my luck isn't that good.

    Posted

  • grums by grums

    Hi dbarak,

    Thanks for that; I may have a go when I find something interesting. I have spotted several potential asteroids but it is hard to be sure if they are real compared with being unlucky with the random background fluctuations which are often of comparable brightness. I try to check if the observed dots are occurring equally spaced and in a straight line (allowing for the frame jitter). I have both caught and missed some previously known asteroids though few, if any, were as bright as the ones in your captured image.

    It would be interesting to know what algorithms are applied in the automated detection system, especially to separate out random backround fluctuations from genuine moving objects.

    Posted

  • dbarak by dbarak

    I've started using the color cycle a bit more today, and it seems that if there's really something moving it shows up pretty clearly. Of course, I'm still new at this so I could be completely wrong. I did have another set of images that might have had two asteroids in it, one more likely than the other. Nothing I'd be confident to say is 100% correct though.

    Posted

  • grums by grums in response to dbarak's comment.

    The colour sequence shows up well if the asteroids are bright but some of them, including some of the confirmed, previously found ones, don't seem to show up well at all with the colours. I did wonder if changing the lcd screen characteristics might help but I have not tried that.

    Posted

  • dbarak by dbarak

    I'm too impatient to find the weaker ones. ; )

    Posted

  • Barbalbero by Barbalbero

    Hi to everyone
    Are there any news or updates about the status of our analysis? I can't wait to have info about our discoveries!

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    I'll see if I can summon a scientist to get an update! 😃

    Posted

  • hightower73 by hightower73

    with all the respect in the world DZM, we have been promised an update for weeks now and still nothing

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Unfortunately, I personally don't have the information you're looking for, or I'd be more than happy to answer you! I can tell you that Asteroid Zoo has completed 1,509,041 classifications by 6,916 users, and there are still 2,000-4,000 being done each day (wow!)

    The only ones who know the specifics on individual asteroids, and when/how much of that data will be put out there, though, are the Asteroid Zoo science team. The most that I can do is let them know that their users desperately want an in-depth update, and I've done so, multiple times...

    Please remember that they are incredibly busy and are probably still dealing with the fallout from losing their stuff in the rocket explosion. But I will continue to push for them to drop by and give you something in-depth!

    Posted

  • Barbalbero by Barbalbero in response to DZM's comment.

    Thanks for your help
    I just thought one thing: is it possible for some volunteers to help the Team of Asteroid Zoo with all the stuffs related to this project? Maybe everything can be faster with the collaboration of volunteers and the Team of Asteroid Zoo will have less work to do in this way

    Posted

  • grums by grums

    I agree Barbalbero. I think there are quite a lot of able and willing people, with reasonably powerful computers, who could do much more when there is a logjam due to unforseen circumstances.

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin in response to Barbalbero's comment.

    You'll have to ask Dr. Asteroid. 😃 If he doesn't respond here in a few days, I'll point him over here. Thanks!

    Posted

  • hightower73 by hightower73

    im wiling to help, i have a very good internet connection, 75mb/p/s download with 25mb/p/s upload speed with no limits, a fairly empty computer in regards to storage and there are only 2 of us sharing the connection, so could do some work as well if dr. asteroid needs any help

    Posted