If your question about using the Virtual Microscope is not answered here, please visit our Forum. If your question is about configuring your internet browser, please refer to the Tech FAQ.

If you are unclear about the purpose of the virtual microscope, or what choices you have to be make about the movies you see in the virtual microscope, consider retaking the tutorial.

Questions about VM

Q1. When should I use the "Bad Focus" button?
In general, if the focus movie prevents you from making a clear judgement about the movie.

The ideal focus situation would be such that the surface is in focus near the middle to upper third of the focus range.

Particle tracks will only be visible starting at the surface (not above it) and will remain in focus below the surface. So it is necessary to be able to focus to a reasonable depth below the surface of the aerogel.

Example 1 - If you find a movie where the focus is too high and the surface never comes into focus, then click "Bad Focus."

Example 2 - If you find a movie where the focus just barely makes it to the surface but does not go far enough below to be able to tell if there is a track or not, then click "Bad Focus."

Example 3 - Sometimes the surface is very tilted, but it is still possible to see every part of the field of view below the surface. Click "No Track" or on a track if you happen to see one in the field of view.

Example 4 - Other times it is so sloped that you cannot get all of the field below the surface. In these cases, click "Bad Focus."

Example 5 - Occasionally, people come across a movie that has more than one field of view mixed in. As described in the FAQ about this, this is really only a problem if the split happens near the middle of the focus range and prevents you from determining if there is a track or not. If it does prevent you from making a clear determination, then click "Bad Focus." Otherwise click as normal.

Visit our forum about bad focus for more discussion.

Q2. Can I review calibration movies?
If you notice that your score has changed negatively after evaluating a movie, then you have incorrectly answered a calibration movie. To review the movie, simply press the back button on your browser. You will not be able to alter your answer, but you can look at the movie again to see if you can determine what you did wrong.

However, you cannot use the My Events viewer to view calibration movies. If you plug in the movie ID# for a calibration movie in the My Events viewer it will return a real movie that has the same ID#.

Remember that the calibration movies are there to help you in your search, but they are not the standard for what a real track looks like. We simply do not know what a real track looks like at this point and the calibration movies are there to help show you what a real track might look like.

Q3.Can I change my answers or remove events?
No, VM does not have this feature.

Questions about Focus Movies

Q1. What do I do with this strange/interesting/weird movie?
Click it. We will review movies with high clicks. At this point, we are overwhelmed and cannot review individual movies.

Q2. This movie has other movie images in it. What should I do?
Some movies switch to a completely different image at the bottom of the focus. This occasionally happens during data processing.

If you can, ignore the out-of-place image and decide on the merits of the rest of the movie.

If the movie is split so that you cannot view below the surface of the aerogel, click Bad Focus to signal that we need to rescan those coordinates.

Questions about Scoring

Your score is the number of correct calibration movies (either you found the track, or rightly selected No Track) minus the number of calibration movies you answered incorrectly.

Only calibration movies count towards your score. Approximately 80% of the focus movies that you view are real Stardust data.We don't know the answer to them yet! Real focus movies, whether they have a track, no track or are out of focus will not affect your score.

Q1. Does it matter if you get a low score?
Scoring is a way to assess how well you are doing by providing some feedback from the virtual microscope. It helps us assess who are the most reliable searchers and movies selected for further scrutiny by high scoring volunteers will be highlighted first.

Q2. Are some people cheating to get a high score?
View the discussion here.

Questions about Miscellaneous Topics

Q1.Where is my certificate?
For the training certificate, please log in and go to My Events --> My Certificates or Community --> Certificates.

The other certificates are not yet released due to two reasons:

1. For the integrity of the certificates - for example, the first 100 users signed up will be ranked in the top 100 even though their scores might be 0.
2. The certificates were the last thing on our check list before launching. There were some technical difficulties we were having with them and decided to launch with only the training certificates activated. We are delaying the development of the certificate systems and intend to make certificate for other milestones available after a couple of weeks when we get all the other post-launch glitches worked out.

Please search through our forum for more topics.