Virtual Astronomy

DarkKnightRadick writes: "In this day and age, data sharing, data mining and distributed computing are words most of us know well enough, but until recently, those phrases were connected with such projects as DNET, and more recently with SETI@Home. Now we should all welcome the newcomer, Virtual Astronomy. With the framework being developed by three different groups (one in the UK, one in the US, and one in Australia), one would expect this to be a very competitive field, but alas, this is not the case. The three groups are working together so that they can have it all up in running the in the projected 15 years that it will take to put all this data into an electronic format."

Comments

oh boy

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap, could Slashdot possibly get any worse?

Re:oh boy

[Roto-Rooter Man]

Please clear the spider egg sacks and the pus out of that hairy cunt.

Last time I fucked you, afterbirth and maggots fell out on my dick.

I think I see some termites munching on a petrified fetus skull in there.

-> Yo slut, it's time for a DEEP DOUCHE. <-

Yeah you should really pour some Drano down in there. Get that thick crust off the sides.

It's bad to keep tampons in that long. Four months -- that's too much.

Get in there and DOUCHE that vulva, honey.

it's 3 AM

[GaylordFucker]

and i'm still up... hoping that a girl will like me... maybe i should be gay... after all.. i am gaylord :-\

Re:it's 3 AM

[Anonymous Coward]

go gay. women are too much of a hassle

Re:it's 3 AM

[Roto-Rooter Man]

You should add that if he goes gay, he should first pour some lye down his Hershey Highway to eat away at the years of accumulated feces on the sides of his rectum. That way his partner can have a more sanitary and fulfilling ass-ramming experience. I learned that from CmdrTaco. I myself stick to women. That fishy yeasty smell I cannot resist. Especially if it means I get to administer a douche to those foul private parts. Mmmmm.

SplashBot sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so boring, what the fuck man.

holy fuck

[Anonymous Coward]

How hard is it to verify the URL's in a one paragraph submission?

This is definately the way to go

[Lucky Kevin]

It was a lot of fun to participate in the Seti@home project and a worthy cause for spare cpu cycles. Sign me up Scotty.

Kevin

Re:This is definately the way to go

[Anonymous Coward]

Seti@Home is not over yet! and, beside DNET and Seti@Home, there is Folding@Home that worth a look at too to waste spare cpu cycles.

That's been the trend in recent years

[Walter Bell]

As a NASA employee, I have seen a pronounced shift in the focus of the organization, from data collection to data distillation and mining. As it turns out, we have tens of years of work ahead of us in processing the data that we collected from space in the 1980s and 1990s alone. In fact, we have not yet developed software to mine the information out of this data that we need - the bottleneck is 95% manpower and 5% CPU cycles. And that is in spite of the budget shifting substantially toward processing and away from missions (which are expensive, misunderstood, and often goofed up).

I fully expect that by 2010 or so, we probably will not be doing launches more than once every few years. Indeed, it is rumored that the recent space shuttle launch was intended only to intimidate third-world nations in the Middle East and make them realize our superior technology - not for any scientific purpose. I do not believe that that launch would have taken place in the absence of the 9/11 events. When I checked the calendar several months ago, it did not show any major launches until late 2002.

~wally

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Slashdot Readers,

The above user is a known troll. He has posted frequently in trolltalk. Typically, trolls are allowed to post, as long as they do not use scripted attacks or fill the page with ascii art. In accordance with this policy, this post will remain on the page, however: the factual content of the above post is near zero.

I urge anyone who feels this post to be unique to check the user's user info, and notice that all of his posts are in fact trolls. Please do not fall for it. In the event you notice any more trolls, please contact me immediately at malda@slashdot.org.

Sincerely,
Cmdr (Rob Malda) Taco

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid troll, stop using racisim disguised as a NASA employee, your a shame. Why do you want us to be more paranoid? It's people like you who decay the core of our nation.

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Anonymous Coward]

"intimidate" ? Your insecure? Little penis^H^H^H^Hshuttle syndrome? Dang, I bet your supervisor would love hearing what you wrote on /. Infact, I just e-mailed him a copy ;)

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Anonymous Coward]

That was an awful quick reply. Do you follow me around all day or something?

~wally

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Anonymous Coward]

nope ... i'm just smart enough to spot trolls faster than everyone else ...

i had even tried to post that comment via three proxies (i hate using my real ip), and the GiZ crapflooders seem to have gotten them all banned ...

as much as i like well crafted, intelligent trolls, this one didnt seem to impress me much, so i figured i'd point it out, since i'm such a nice, caring person (and you can afford the one or two point karma hit, apparently)

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Anonymous Coward]

swallow it then. stop following me around.

~wally

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Anonymous Coward]

but i love you wally!

please wont you post another blatant troll so i can point that one out too?

please?

pretty pretty please?

what if i widen the page to make room?

• 
  
  • 
    WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WW
    
  
  

does that help, "wally" ?

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut me some slack dogg, I'm just a novice.

Can you give me some pointers on how to craft a better troll?

~wally

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Anonymous Coward]

no
.

• 
  
  • 
    WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WW
    
  
  

am i asleep yet? oh, AND DONT USE SO MANY CAPS IN YOUR COMMENTS, ITS LIKE YELLING.

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[squaretorus]

Its not just in astronomy, or even Science that the data gathering is streaking ahead of the data analysis.

In business VAST amounts of information is now routinely being gathered. In most cases nothing useful is being done with it. One of the things we do for clients is identify the data that can be usefully REPORTED, rather than gathered.

That way you only gather data that you will be getting value from, reducing the gathering effort and cost dramatically.

If all scientific data were to be treated similarly - i.e. gather as you need - more resource could be put into the analysis as less is put into gathering. Data for its own sake is fine if you have unlimited resource. Most of us don't - not even Nasa during wartime.

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Detritus]

Please do not feed the trolls.

If you want facts, as opposed to fiction, see the current NASA launch forecast.

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod this down, it's obviously intended to be contentious. There are those in NASA (and especially in the Benighted Bush administration) who think sending up a probe every few years would be better than sending up live people every few months AND a probe every year or two (look at the retentive number cruncher they nominated to replace Goldin); but there are a lot of others who think that NASA primary mission always has been, and always will be, the manned and unmanned exploration of space, and the data analysis should be a cooperative venture between NASA, universities, and those corporations who are willing to shell out for it.

Re:That's been the trend in recent years

[Johnny Vector]

If all scientific data were to be treated similarly - i.e. gather as you need - more resource could be put into the analysis as less is put into gathering. Data for its own sake is fine if you have unlimited resource. Most of us don't - not even Nasa during wartime.

But in astronomy at least, new missions (in the case of NASA that means spacecraft, but it applies to ground observatories as well) are mainly driven precisely by need. We've got all this great X-ray data from Chandra, and in many cases it leads to more questions that can't be answered by the data it can provide. Ergo, we build the next generation instrument.

Sure, we end up with lots of data that has other uses, and even some data that is never analyzed for lack of time. But don't think for a minute that we could learn anything like what we know by sitting back and just analyzing old data. You want to check the Iron K-line complex? Sorry, no existing data has the resolution.

Mind you, the project in question is A Good Idea. But I assure you that new missions are very competetive, and are approved only if the science to be gained is not achievable with current instruments.

The advantage of open data formats

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as your data can be parsed with a single fscanf statement in a for loop, there will be someone interested in using your data.

JTFTR

[Anonymous Coward]

Just Trolling For Teryl Rothery

The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)

Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950 . That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

Re:The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll or no troll .. this is damn funny.

Re:The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth

[Arjuna]

To paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi:

That's no troll, its a weather balloon!

ASCII art mystery?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to all the magnificent ASCII art that used to grace the pages of slashdot regulary?

Re:ASCII art mystery?

[Anonymous Coward]

we don't post any, because we're all too busy trying to get the

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00 00000000000

000****0***00****0****0****000****00* ***00***0**** 000

000*00000*000*00*0*0000000*0000*00*00*00*000* 00000 *00000

000****0*000****0****000*0000****00*00*00* **0000*0 0000

000*0000*000*00*0000*000*0000*000000*00*0000 0*000* 00000

000*00***00*00*0***000*0000*000000****000** *000*00 000

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000 000000

~Bioh

Re:ASCII art mystery?

[Anonymous Coward]

oo _____ooo_oooooooooooooooo_ooooooo____ooooooooooooo ooooo_ooo
o|oo___|o(_)oo_o__ooo___oo|o|_oooo|oo_o\oooo___ooo o___oo|o|_o
o|o|_oooo|o|o|oo__|o/o__|o|o__|ooo|o|_)o|oo/o_o\oo /o__|o|o__|
o|oo_|ooo|o|o|o|oooo\__o\o|o|_oooo|oo__/oo|o(_)o|o \__o\o|o|_o
o|_|ooooo|_|o|_|oooo|___/oo\__|ooo|_|oooooo\___/oo |___/oo\__|
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooo

-sigh-

[kgarcia]

Am I blind, or is there no information whatsoever on where I can be part of this. From what I could tell in the article, this is a project in which 3 labs are cooperating to make a lot of data available to researchers, but nowhere it says that it is a cooperative effort at all similar to SETI, at least, not in 15 years. . .

virtual..

[Anonymous Coward]

Jon Katz like to suck on virtually every little boys. Why does he like to place their tiny developing peckers in his filthy cumhole of his mouth? Why, oh why?

Virtually first post.

Fascinating, but what's the attraction?

[pjbass]

So I have to say the concept and application of distributed computing has really opened the door to many research facilities and other projects to get off the ground and produce results. And the application of distributed computing for the crunching and modelling of data that is just "sitting around" to discover new astromical bodies or refine what has already been discovered is a very good idea. But what does this provide the end-user? From the article, it sounds as if this is aimed at the average Internet user who has a net connection:

...instead with little more than a laptop computer, an Internet connection and a learned and persistent amateur...

So my comment is really this: Examples used to "sell" distributed computing before were pretty much aimed more at a larger group of people. D.NET had RSA sponsoring the RC5/64 competition with a cash prize. Also the bragging rights of how many Gigakeys you pumped out in a day was worth it to some. Also, with the Cure for Cancer project, this is something that people will see having a very positive impact to each and every one of us. But, with this, where is the incentive? What will it matter to the end-user (who will be donating his/her spare CPU cycles) what a space rock orbiting Pluto's diameter is? I see the concept will be very powerful if applied to this scenario, but I don't see it really catching on with people. Maybe those who are/have participated in Seti@Home can comment, since this seems to be a similar project?

Re:Fascinating, but what's the attraction?

[mph]

You're completely missing the boat here. The "averate Internet user" is not a "learned and persistent [sic] amateur." This is not an SETI@Home-like effort to get end-users to donate "his/her spare CPU cycles." It is an effort to distribute data to interested researchers, including amateurs.

Linux sucks like your mamma's ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

l like linux because I am a big dumb fater mofo from the county of ass county I like linux too because I am a big fat ass with no jobs and have nothing better to do.

Re:Linux sucks like your mamma's ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, you really have a point there. I was recently going to suggest that my workplace switch over to Linux from Windows NT, but your thoughts give me pause. The "ass county" aspect certainly piques my professional interest. Do you have a website where I can read some more of your insightful ideas?

Re:Linux sucks like your mamma's ass.

[kawaichan]

For more information about linux and why linux sucks dick so badly, go to the grass movement of no-linux movemet @ microsoft.com Tip of the day from this troll: Linux is an evil OS made by Linus because the fact that he enjoys being stupid.

Re:Linux sucks like your mamma's ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody mod this bozo -1 troll, please! Since he likes spam so much, here's the return address: kawaichan@msn.com

SLASHDOT WAS HACKED

[mark knopfler 69]

by a group of flying faggot-monkeys

actually, that's pretty much the target audience. anyway, about 15 minutes ago, some of their site wasn't working, i hope their faggoty linux got hacked out of the ass.

Re:SLASHDOT WAS HACKED

[Anonymous Coward]

It was probably the database going down again. The crappy combination of MySQL and Linux sucks more dick than JonKatz

Re:SLASHDOT WAS HACKED

[Anonymous Coward]

If you continue to talk like that about Linux your IP address is going to get banned.

Intimidate?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I can be living in the United States and not be aware of that recent space shuttle launch despite being a space enthusiast, I doubt that third-world nations with filtered news coverage and other preoccupations even noticed. You're biased because you're working at NASA, just like a Pizza Hut employee will know about the latest Pepperoni shipment, but that hardly makes it universal knowledge. Either that or you're trolling.

Is it just me . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

or has someone taken it upon himself to post some idiotic, off-topic trollings. btw this is a cool subject, and i'm sure many people will find it interesting. i know i will.

Here's a poll I can't wait to see

[Anonymous Coward]

Which will happen first?

a) CowboyNeal will stop eating so damn much.

b) CowboyNeal will die from overeating.

c) CowboyNeal will eat a Beowulf cluster of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Re:Here's a poll I can't wait to see

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way, I know this will be modded down by some fatso. Admit it, tubby, you're repulsive! Lose some weight already, and stop taking out your fat fury on people who have self-control!

Re:Here's a poll I can't wait to see

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with this troll completely. stop chucking all those fucking cheese into your already balloon like stomach.

Another one soon : the Telethon

[Anonymous Coward]

They plan on opening this one in early 2002, to aid combating genetic deseases in a distributed way. Quite helpful, I think...!

b.

Join the SplashBlob Speical Elite Troll Today!

[Anonymous Coward]

You now, can join the SplashBlob (TM) Speical Elite Troll today! For a small monthly fee of $13.99, you can now join the ever expanding elite trolling leauge on the internet. For all those that are interested, reply below.

WARNING: GOATSE.CX LINK IN PARENT

[Anonymous Coward]

Telethon is french for Goat.

Important Information For Slashdot Users -Updated-

[Anonymous Coward]

Important Information For Slashdot Users

It has come to my attention that many of the Slashdot editors engage in homosexual activities. CmdrTaco is one such person who shares in this, and is often referred to as the leader of a purely gay cult created for the worship and the spreading of Taco-Snotting beliefs and values. For further information on Taco-Snotting please refer to George WIPO Bush's Taco-Snotting FAQ which can be easily found by searching for the Slashdot journal of George WIPO Bush or by looking in the comments of Slashdot articles (usually modded -1).

It has also come to my attention that CmdrTaco has other interests besides homosexuality (believe it or not). One such interest includes a budding music career with a song titled "Wide Anus". The details are very sketchy on this topic but all I know are that besides the vocals of CmdrTaco, it also includes Slashdot editors Timothy and CowboyNeal with various references to others involved in this homosexual cult. One puzzling oddity is the inclusion of Pamela Lee in the song. If anyone has any information on this specific topic, please post it in under this message in the Slashdot comments. There has been no release date stated for this song or which record label it will be produced under. I believe CmdrTaco is planning to set up his own label, Taco-Snotting Records, with the intention of releasing the song on a cd-single with various remixes as soon as possible to catch the current popularity of this Taco-Snotting fad. Various remixes will include the "Extra Jizz", "Non-Stop Hip Hop", "www.Goatse.cx", and the "Can't Stop Till You Taco-Snot" versions.

Through a good, non-homosexual friend of mine I have recieved a copy of the lyrics to the Wide Anus musical composition. Included at the end of this post is a speical tribute ending written by yours truely. Perhaps CmdrTaco will ask me to provide the vocals for this ending. Please feel free to read the lyrics (in true type font) and share your comments and disgust.

BTW, please do not reply with the intention of flaming me because the lyrics are a rip-off of ICP's Slim Anus. CmdrTaco is the author of this fine musical work and not I so it is obviously he who has ripped off ICP and not me. I am truely serious. Thank you.

Hi, my name is what?
My name is who?
My name is Wide Anus
Hi, my name is huh?
My name is what?
My name is the fudgepacker
Hi, my name is what?
My name is who? (Excuse me)
My name is the nutlicker
Hi, my name is what? (Can I have the attention of your ass?)
My name is who?
My name is the buttsniffer

Hi, kids do you like Anus?
I let Linus Torvalds fill up my butt for a chance to be famous (Uh huh)
Wanna copy me and do exactly like I did? (Yeah)
Try Taco-Snotting and get your butt pumped out like I did?
My brains dead weight
I'm tryin to get my head straight
But I can't figure out
Which Slashdot editor I wanna impregnate
Timothy said, "CmdrTaco you a cutie" (Uh huh)
"I'll give you a deal, let me up in that booty" (OK!)
Well since age 12 I felt like I'm someone else
Cause I choked my original self Taco-Snotting him (Yup)
Got pissed off and ripped Pamela Lee's tits off
She don't know how to do Chris D
I'd suck his dick off

Hi, my anus who?
My anus what?
My anus it gets tapped dawg
Hi, my anus (Excuse me)
My anus
My anus every now and then gets plugged up
Hi, my anus (Can I have the attention of your ass?)
My anus
My anus is occasionally reamed out
Hi, my anus who?
My anus what?
My anus really needs to be filled up

My boss wanted to fire me yesterday
I told him to take his pants off, hooked him up, he let me slide
I pinched his ass
He winked at me
He chased me around the desk
I told him come and get me
Walked in the strip club
Had my jacket zipped up
Flashed the bartender
And I tried to feel his dick up
Extra-terestrial runnin over pedestrians
In a space ship while they screamin at me
Let's just be friends!
99% of my life I was lied to
I just found out my Mom screws more guys than I do (Damn)
I told her I'd grow up to be a famous Taco-Snotter
She met CowboyNeal I couldn't believe it when he slapped her
You know you blew up when the women rush the stands
And try to touch your hands
But I need me a man
This guy at Gay Al's strip club asked for my autograph (Dude can I get your
autograph?)
So I signed it Dear Alan Cox, thanks for the support
Nice ass!

Hi, my name is huh?
My name is who? (Excuse me)
My name is (They call me the pore plugger)
Hi, my name is what?
My name is who?
My name is the inch itcher (Excuse me)
One of Slashdot's gay boys
They call me the butt itcher
Hi, my name is what?
My name is who?
My name is (I've been called Hemos' butt boy)

Stop the tape this gaylord needs to be locked away (Get him)
Cliff don't just stand there operate
Or feel up my balls and buttcheeks
Anal lube got my ass greasy for weeks
Stick your manhood between my cheeks (Yup)
Am I coming or going
I can barely decide
I just drank a pint of semen
Dare me to drive? (Go ahead)
All my life I was very deprived
CowboyNeal's butt is too sexy to hide
Take your pants off Neal I don't mind
Clothes rip like the incredible Hulk
I Taco-Snot when I talk
I do any guy that walks
When I was little I used to get so hungry I would throw fits
Sometimes I sit and wish Hemos had a set of tits
CowboyNeal: "Get behind me CmdrTaco and grab me by my hips"
If I do that then I can't kiss you on your lips
By the way if you see my Dad
Ask him if he seen my spread in Gay Al's porno mag

Hi, my anus who?
My anus what?
My anus gets tapped up
Hi, my anus who?
My anus what?
My anus it's always getting plugged up
Hi, my anus who?
My anus what?
My anus occasionally reamed out
My anus well he needs to be filled up

Your anus
Your anus
Your anus is always getting plugged
Your anus
Your anus
Your anus is always getting stuffed
You wanna diss us?
We don't even know you you little bitch
You wanna sit there and diss us?
You little bitch I'll slap your face off
That's what happens when you go up against the Slashdot Trolls trick
You little bitch (Laughs)
Wide Anus!

virtual blackhole images rendered with OpenGL

[Anonymous Coward]

what would a virtual blackhole look like rendered in OpenGL ?

Re:virtual blackhole images rendered with OpenGL

[liquidsin]

You can simulate this effect by turning off your monitor so that no light escapes from it's phosphors. Why waste your time writing all that code? ;)

Re:virtual blackhole images rendered with OpenGL

[Arjuna]

what would a virtual blackhole look like rendered in OpenGL ?

Already done (minus the OpenGL):

About that website...

[DigitalGodBoy]

This story may have "star-reaching-implications", but their website has the same old banner ads...

I think some of us are missing the point here

[Mudge Pinkerton-Bott]

The way I read the article, it doen't seem to be dealing with the issue as a burner of spare CPU cycles (as with seti@home), but more as a big resource for people who actually have some expertise in the field of astronomy.

Virtual Asstronomy ay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi
Malda ate my ballz!

Thank you
Im watching Jenny Jones

Competition

[pubjames]

With the framework being developed by three different groups (one in the UK, one in the US, and one in Australia), one would expect this to be a very competitive field, but alas, this is not the case. The three groups are working together so that they can have it all up in running the in the projected 15 years that it will take to put all this data into an electronic format.

Our village needs a new town hall. Because we're modern progressive thinkers, rather than build one, we've decided that we're going to divide the village into three teams, and then compete to see which team can build a town hall first. Each team will get a grant from tax-payers money to build their hall. Obviously this will give us the best and most efficient result.

GIVE CREDIT TO THE SOURCE (Karma Whore)

[Anonymous Coward]

Here , the original post

Re:Important Information For Slashdot Users -Updat

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off troll

Oh, please!

[Anonymous Coward]

Timmah and crew are much too busy playing Halo and Diablo 2 to worry about verifying URLs!

Re:Important Information For Slashdot Users -Updat

[Anonymous Coward]

I resent that...

More information

[Internet Ninja]

The paper and more can be found here

Uh...

[Graymalkin]

The goal of this project isn't to recreate SETI@Home but to give astronomers all over the place access to data collected by instruments in places where they aren't. We've got thousands of instruments gulping down data but most of it doesn't ever get processed, just stored for later. Like the article says, anybody can have access to massive amounts of raw data. A grad student in the UK can download data gathered from telescopes in Hawai'i and write his or her own program to process them looking for the data they want. A group of amateur astronomers could request a bunch of wide field images and scavange through them looking for comets or asteroids.

IT WOULD BE WORSE IF THEY STOPPED USING LINIUX!!!!

[Linux_Fag]

YAY for LINUX!!!!!

Interesting, but YOU can do this...

[pease1]

As an amateur astronomer who has contributed to various research papers with professionals over the years, I have a number of friends who have been mining SOHO, , IUE, HST, MASS and other astronomical data archives for a number of years. Most have made some discoveries, usually in the form of new objects, clusters or comets. It's time consuming, and sometimes a bit mind numbing, but very doable for anyone with a decent machine and net connection.

Works even better if you run Linux and can get IRAS running and have a good display, especially if you want to fool around with the Hubble archives. Professional astronomers have been doing their research on unixes for 20 plus years. Tools are available for the asking and most professionals and grad students are willing to help out an amateur who is serious. Linux brings, to an amateur, the same desktop power, but at a very low cost.

Astronomy is one of the few hard sciences where an amateur can contribute serious work, either with nothing more than a telescope and a webcam to digging into the very numerous digital archives that are available for free.

And to add to that, there is a long, long, tradition of amateurs and professional astronomers working together. For a great example see theAmerican Assoc. of Variable Star Observers.

This isn't p2p astronomy

[Dan Hon]

Most posters here haven't seem to have grasped the fact that these projects aren't dealing with letting the public access data in a Seti@home manner. That's not the aim at all. What they're trying to do is consolidate all the data that they do have available, and make that accessible to researchers. That way, you don't have to bid for expensive telescope time, you just make a requisition for the data, which would just get squirted at you over the net.

Want a particular portion of the sky at a particular wavelength? Just check the database for it. Simple as that. With the amount of machine-controlled telescopes and the new arrays developed, sucking in all this data, managing it, consolidating it and allowing people to access it in an easy way is a great move forward.

science fair discoveries

[peter303]

Astronomy is a field where non-professionals still make significant discoveries. Virtual astronomy will further facilitate this. Any high school student with enough patience an accumen could learn something significant.

For example: SETI@home data reuse

[Lebofsky]

We here at SETI@home collected hundreds and hundreds of 35 GB DLTs worth of data, all staring at the hydrogen line. So with relatively little effort at all, we can construct a rather robust map of hydrogen in the sky above Arecibo Observatory.

Details at: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/newsletters/newslet ter10.html

- Matt Lebofsky - SETI@home

Not really news. . . .

[astrobabe]

This initiative started when the Decadal Survey was released about 2 years ago now. At the moment all the "publicly" available data is spread across multiple depositories, one major one in France and then the NASA Hubble/Chandra/everything else depository and then the individual surveys (2MASS, Sloan, NOAO Deep Wide, etc. . .) are archived but can prove to be a pain to obtain. More than anything whomever does all this archiving must have a bunch of hard drive space. . . .for the NOAO Deep Wide Field we've got something like a terrabytes worth of data and we're still getting more. . . .to heck with travel expenses when you have to pay for new 100 gig hard drives every other month. . . .

Broken Link

[cascino]

Perhaps this is off-topic, but the link to distributed.net is broken in the story paragraph. The 'p' in 'http:' is missing.

So How is this different from the CADC?

[Force]

The Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC) has been doing this since 1986.

From their web pages:

The CADC was established in 1986 as one of three world-wide distribution centres for data from the Hubble Space Telescope. HST archive is possible through a grant from the Canadian Space Agency.

Most of the CADC software development is done in collaboration with the European Southern Observatories located in Garching, near Munchen, Germany and the Space Telescope - European Coordinating Facilities.

The mandate of the CADC includes

• operating and maintaining an archive of all the scientific data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
• operating and maintaining an archive of all the scientific data collected by the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT).
• developing software tools for maximizing the scientific usefulness of astronomical archives. promoting the concept of astronomical data archives in the community.
• providing technical information and user support on using data from the our archives.

it's really about being more efficient

[supernova87a]

I have the feeling that some may be confused about what virtual astronomy is. So perhaps I can try to clear up a little bit.

Much of astronomy now is done by individual astronomers going to telescopes and pointing to interesting objects in the sky. Each researcher has lists of several objects they'd like to observe, and on their night at the telescope, they skip from object to object. This is good for the individual astronomer, but unfortunately, wastes a lot of time, because a lot of the time must be spent on finding the object, moving the telescope, etc. Because observing time is so precious, a new way has been discovered to make it more efficient -- virtual observing.

Virtual observing mas made possible by the great advances in database technology and hardware storage technology. It works by having a telescope (which used to be used by astronomers for individual objects, for example) survey broad areas of sky, subsequently storing that data on disk. Efficiency is increased, because you essentially put the telescope in one position and let the sky move over it, instead of having to point from object to object. Also, setting the telescope up for one survey run is much better than setting it up for the 2 or 3 observers each night, who may have different requirements.

Then, when an "observer" wants to look at an object, instead of asking the telescope to point there specially for him/her, now he/she just goes to the database and retrieves the image. It's better for the astronomer too -- quicker, no need to wait for a clear night, or your time to observer, and no need to fly out to the observatory. There are also lots of gains to be had in the science, too, because some experiments require large swaths of continuous sky to analyze, instead of just individual objects. Much of the work demonstrating the expansion of the universe relies on having such data, and it's only been possible recently with the first virtual observing projects.

The challenges are, as stated in previous posts, compiling all the data so that it can be accessible in an easy way by observers around the world, storage, and data processing. It's going to be an exciting time for astronomy, and I think that our knowledge is going to increase rapidly!

Some astro software

[mattr]

You can also learn alot about astronomy with currently available databases.. Tycho-2 for example is huge. The most enjoyable software I've used so far is Starry Night on the Mac (and now PC I believe as well). On linux I have starcat, skycalV5, and xephem (which is serious scientific software!).

Xephem (a planetarium and analysis program for linux) is very cool because it can both pull the sky from your LX200 telescope or by replacing the telescope driver with a perl script, it can download part of the sky from an online database, after which you can do realtime image processing on it.

It can also match stars in the sky to stars in the database. So far I have only been able to pull down large segments of the sky at once, but as soon as I can clear the disk space I'll be trying some other pieces of software to try and download smaller pieces of the sky. Starry Night also downloads DSS (Digital Sky Survey) images I believe.

NASA Skyview service
Multimission Archive
StarView
Software for different platforms (or check freshmeat.net)
Serious scientific platforms/data
Skyview (available at IPAC) is available as linux binary and installs quickly at 10mb. It lets you do image analysis with text commands. I have not used it a lot myself.
AstroWeb