Stardust@home

I had the same problem. I found it worked unreliably if I loaded AOL software, or visited certain websites. It would work fine after a computer restart, if I used the VM before either loading AOL or surfing the web.

It might be neat to make a new account and see what rank it computes after one, ten, and 100 movies viewed. Actually you might need to use the calibration movie-based scores. A few intermediate people such as myself (score 946, total movies 3569, rank 783 out of 13,983) would fill in the middle of t...

I agree about the aggregate statistics. A psych major could do all kinds of studies. The following might make neat graphics without compromising any individual's data; accuracy as a function of average viewing time for each volunteer. accuracy as a function of local time of day for each volunteer. a...

I encountered an interesting movie, claiming to be 6521751V1. The unusual feature was a large dark out-of-focus object on the left side of the frame that was above the surface as defined by little bits of dust etc. I clicked on it as a convenient way to record it for later, and got docked for a wron...

This one I would call "Louganis" cause it looks like the track of a diver piercing the water, and about as huge. I'd expect to find him beyond the top of the screen. Also, there is one less digit in the movie number than any of the others I have tagged before or since. http://stardustathom...

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... =4018866V1

Like your alien Bart Simpson. Meanwhile, it's tempting to interpret this one as a debris-filled crater from a gently-impacting dirt clod.

Just a caution. On my machine, if I sign on to use the Virtual Microscope AFTER having loaded AOL's software, the VM is jerky and unreliable changing images as you move your cursor up and down the blue bars, and it will not work at all until both the present movie and the next movie have finished lo...

I totally agree with the last two posts. There needs to be a "mark" button. Such things are not necessarily "artifacts" however. For instance we could find an errant speck of dust from Comet Wilde. Could some particles have bounced off another part of the spacecraft and ended up ...

Meanwhile, this one gave me a start... !

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... =4527461V1

A pretty good job finding and stitching together adjacent focus movies! There are many kinds of fibers smaller than and more common than human hairs. All that lint that is constantly flying off clothing, getting on indoor surfaces and plugging up the lint trap in the dryer, the result of the slow er...

Is there a possibility some of the black or high-relief specks are particles from Comet Wilde that bounced off a surface of the spacecraft and settled in during that encounter? If so, they might be worth marking.

You may be able to. I have felt deja vu with the calibration movies. That is, I recognized at least one as having shown up a second time. There may not be that many!

Not many. The detector on NOZOMI (see http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/dust2005/pdf/4023.pdf ) was active for a substantial time in roughly the same region of space, relative to the sun. It only encountered a few particles with velocities and directions expected for interstellar particles. I can't s...

They pretty much covered most aspects. I'm sure there's others.

It occurred to me that not only will tracks not necessarily be oriented straight down from the surface, but any deviation will be of crucial importance in characterizing a particle. This will be immediately known to the person who first sees it, as for instance going down and to the right 0.1 mm per...