Please Help!

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Chuck Crisler
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 9:44 am
Location: Windham, NH

Please Help!

Post by Chuck Crisler »

I am really having a tough time. I can generally successfully spot several 'types' of calibration movies, but there are several that I simply cannot ever see. Examples include 4199022V1, 1348057V1 and 368625V1. These are the displayed 'Movie IDs', but I don't know how to retrieve them. I tried to retrieve them and different movies were displayed, not the ones that I viewed. (Should I be looking in the URL rather than the displayed Movie ID?) I missed these 3 tonight. I don't rush through the movies. I try to look at the entire image, including the entire edge area. Yet, even after missing these and knowing that there must be a calibration track on them, I still couldn't find them. Would someone please discuss the process you use to find these really obscure calibration tracks?

I don't use the 'auto scan' feature. I first find the surface, then 'bounce' up and down there, looking quickly across the entire surface to see what is interesting or if anything big pops out. If not, then I go back over the entire surface slowly, often several times, going from the surface down a bit and trying to look at each and every spec. I assume that all tracks *MUST* originate with a focused spot on the surface. Since we can see inclusions buried down in the aerogel, then we should generally be able to see a focused spot with each track down in the aerogel. If you look at the example image in the tutorial, a track is drawn from the surface down through the aerogel. That suggests to me that you would anticipate seeing a line that is generally fuzzy but with a spot in focus. As you move the focus up and down that focus spot would also move. The travel direction could be in any direction but would probably be different than the general 'shift' that many images have.

This procedure and these ideas positively don't work. How do other dusters spot tracks?

Thank you,
Chuck Crisler
elainekeefe
Posts: 190
Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2006 4:38 am
Location: Massachusetts, USA

Re: Please Help!

Post by elainekeefe »

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... =4199022V1

365/358

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... =1348057V1

230/5

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... e=368625V1

264/187

Chuck, about 95% of these cm's are copies of Orion. There are almost always two dots connected by a track. The larger of the two dots frequently starts off as a white circle. Also, they are frequently not placed that deeply, so check the shallower depths also.
nitram819
Posts: 90
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:38 am
Location: Quebec, Canada

Re: Please Help!

Post by nitram819 »

I agree with Elaine, when Phase 3 started I knew that we were going to focus on midnight tracks just like Orion.
So the first thing that I did was to review the Stardust tutorial and mainly focused on the Orion track that they added to the tutorial for phase 3.
Go here to see the tutorial that I am talking about, the link will bring you directly to the part about Orion.
http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... e_number=3

Have fun!

Martin
Chuck Crisler
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 9:44 am
Location: Windham, NH

Re: Please Help!

Post by Chuck Crisler »

Thank you to Elaine and Martin for the kind help. I feel somewhat more prepared. However, I still fail to understand the mechanism that causes a particle to make 2 holes in the aerogel. As far as the tutorial goes, there are several other pairs of marks that seem almost identical to the identified track. What characteristics distinguish the track from the other marks, such as the pair to the left of surface identification text? I think that understanding the mechanism and the subtle clues is important to applying it to good dusting.

Chuck
DanZ
Site Admin
Posts: 777
Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:44 pm
Location: Berkeley, CA
Contact:

Re: Please Help!

Post by DanZ »

Chuck Crisler wrote:Thank you to Elaine and Martin for the kind help. I feel somewhat more prepared. However, I still fail to understand the mechanism that causes a particle to make 2 holes in the aerogel."
Hi Chuck - I see you're getting some good help from some of our veterans. To hopefully clarify things a little further, the Orion track does not contain two holes, but rather a track that heads up, or in the "midnight" direction (with the actual entry hole not visible), followed by some condensed aerogel (see discussion here), followed by continued track and finally a termination area (where Orion was found).
Chuck Crisler wrote:As far as the tutorial goes, there are several other pairs of marks that seem almost identical to the identified track. What characteristics distinguish the track from the other marks, such as the pair to the left of surface identification text? I think that understanding the mechanism and the subtle clues is important to applying it to good dusting. -Chuck
Look for the subtle line (or track) that connects such features. Sometimes it also helps to zoom in with your browser by hitting Ctrl + (or on a Mac, "Apple" + I think). But as Elaine alludes, once you start seeing the Orion track over and over again, you'll begin to be able to spot it almost immediately. Anyway, let me know if this is of any help. And thanks for hanging in there!

Dan
nitram819
Posts: 90
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:38 am
Location: Quebec, Canada

Re: Please Help!

Post by nitram819 »

Chuck Crisler wrote:What characteristics distinguish the track from the other marks, such as the pair to the left of surface identification text? I think that understanding the mechanism and the subtle clues is important to applying it to good dusting.

Chuck
As far as effectively identifying tracks in Phase 3, I can tell you that the technique that you described in your first post is the same technique that I am using. I find the surface first and move my mouse up and down a few times bellow the surface (I never use auto scan either).

While I am doing this, I try to keep a general view of the whole movie while moving my mouse up and down quickly a few times. I also try not to concentrate too much on an area unless I see something that focuses differently than other things in the movie. When I see a difference in the focus, I concentrate on the area where I see the difference in focus and determine if it's a track or something else.

Image

Image

Sometimes the track is very very faint and you could miss some. I just got better and better identifying these faint tracks over time.
fjgiie
DustMod
Posts: 1253
Joined: Sat May 20, 2006 8:47 am
Location: Hampton, SC, US

Re: Please Help!

Post by fjgiie »

sehr gute Grafik
nitram819
Posts: 90
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:38 am
Location: Quebec, Canada

Re: Please Help!

Post by nitram819 »

fjgiie wrote:sehr gute Grafik
Danke! :wink:
jsmaje
Posts: 616
Joined: Tue Aug 15, 2006 8:39 am
Location: Manchester UK

Re: Please Help!

Post by jsmaje »

Guten Tag, meine Freunde. Aber...

...if only it were that simple! Am I alone to have come across several CM tracks pasted at incongruous levels, focussing too deep, too shallow, and sometimes with hardly any change in the background focus? There are also those that never fully come into focus at all; big ones aren't too much of a problem, but if small, dim and/or pasted close to (or even straddling) the border they can be all but impossible.

The team have said that the CMs are there simply to provide a uniform measure of duster's observational judgements, not as exemplars of any new tracks to be found, though the latter would indeed focus in the way Martin has demonstrated. We have been warned that some CMs will be intentionally difficult, and I can hear Anna Butterworth having a good chuckle at her successful cheekiness and sowing of confusion :) .

Knowing that there are are just two CM samples, in whatever manner pasted against whatever background and the way they focus, I now simply rely on recognising their particular configurations. And they do serve as a repeated reminder to spend sufficient time evaluating every movie. However, the effectiveness of this strategy would much greater if they weren't quite so recognisably different from the rest (not to mention R-clicking, which of course I won't). The same issue emerged early on in phase 1, but is clearly not yet overcome or considered a problem.

Bon nuit,
Jean
nitram819
Posts: 90
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:38 am
Location: Quebec, Canada

Re: Please Help!

Post by nitram819 »

Bonjour Jean,

Actually I have seen several of these 'bad focus' calibration movies, so your definitely not alone there. I'm usually able to identify them because I have Orion permanently printed to my memory to the point where sometimes I don't even have to focus up and down to see it, not all the time but very frequently.

Although, all these facts did not stop me from finding real tracks, just recently I found a high angle track in a 50 micron movie. I remember having problems during phase 2 with finding these HAT because the focus was on other types of tracks ('carrot like' or whatever is the term for these) , so it doesn't look like its the case anymore.

Anyway, I gotta run home now.

À la prochaine!

Martin
Chuck Crisler
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 9:44 am
Location: Windham, NH

Re: Please Help!

Post by Chuck Crisler »

Thank you everyone for the helpful comments. Despite my difficulties, I am a veteran duster (joined in August of the first year, made top 100 in phase II). I am just a bit slow to figure things out. Though I have been back to the tutorial a few times, now I will *REALLY* study Orion. My score is now significantly improving. It has been rather tough and discouraging at times, but I really believe in this project and want to help. Also, I don't frequent the forums but have seen several really good posts with some excellent comments. I shall start following the forums more!

Again, Thank You everyone for the help.

Chuck
nitram819
Posts: 90
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:38 am
Location: Quebec, Canada

Re: Please Help!

Post by nitram819 »

Awesome Chuck, I'm really glad to hear that you are seeing improvement now. Forums have been very useful to me in the past as well, lots of good info here.

Keep up the good work! 8)

Martin
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