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Comet Hunting For The Masses
khendron writes "In this article in Wired the most awesome past time is described. Comet Hunting. On you computer. No more cold nights outside with the telescope. Sit back with a cola, fire up the broadband, and start looking." From the article: "Amateurs looking at the SOHO images on the Web have found 76 percent of the 428 new comets that have turned up in SOHO images. Of the 31 people who have discovered comets, 21 of them are amateurs. They come from 10 different countries, including Australia, Great Britain, Germany and China. "
Cool. We can get recognition for looking at computer screens, at last!
If there was a geek olympics would this be a medal sport?
Now, I have things to do Tuesday.
1. Hunt comets
2. Flee nerd-hunters
What happens if you are the one to find ELE (Extinction Level Event)? Are you a hero? For how long? And the Most Important Question: Do you tell anyone else?
You, like many of the other slashdotters who browse this site may be interested in Astronomy. But alas, Astronomy is one of those "evil" practices where often one must go outside, or even to a planetarium to witness the night sky.
No such need anymore! New and Improved SOHO gives you all the luxury of another nerdy hobby without ever having to leave the house! Just browse the pages, and you too can feel that you're at one with the night sky! Without even having to take your eyes off the computer screen!
Ever worry that you'll lose your lovely monitor tan if you go outside and do anything! Not to worry! SOHO's experience fits in a browser window, along with your threads of GIMPS, SETI@Home, and ProgressQuest to boot! Contribute to 3 1/4 worthy causes at the same time!
But wait, there's more! If you visit our Site, we will give you a nifty "I find comets while surfing slashdot" T-Shirt! This does well with the ladies when talking to them over the webcam.
Act now! Web site is limited as this site is bound to be slashdotted soon.
Visit today! Before that comet with your name on it becomes "Comet AnonCoward-23832"
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
This is hardly unusual. When it comes down to it, amateurs do more than 76 percent of virtually everything practical in astronomy already. Professionals frequently work with amateurs to get and confirm results, and a lot of professional astronomers also do things as amateurs (for fun) when they're not working. Then amateurs keep up with the professional findings, and everyone gets something out of it.
Astronomy is probably one of the only sciences left where amateur hobbyists can and do still contribute so much useful effort towards it.
There's just not enough funding for astronomy and space science to do anywhere near everything that can be done. For example, to get time on any big telescope, a professional has to write up a massive report and convince a board that it's worth researching what they want to do. They often have to book it many months or years in advance for possibly one or two nights of viewing. If there are circumstances like bad weather, it's often just treated as bad luck.
That's about the state of professional astronomy. The resources are so limited that there's a massive reliance on data submitted by and work done by amateurs. Professionals can't watch all the sky all the time. Lots of supernovae, comets and asteroids in the past have been discovered by amateurs from their back yard, reported, and confirmed by professionals before (sometimes) being studied further.
I don't know why you'd want to sit in front of a computer studying photographs all the time when you can go out with a telescope. It's so much more fun and rewarding to be actually doing something, and you actually meet people when you get involved, which is more than most people get from sitting in front of a computer. But I probably feel that way because I'm an amateur astronomer.