Stardust@home

I logged in last night and tonight (Tuesday, 6/28/11 and Wednesday, 6/29/11). Tonight I noticed the announcement of Phase 4 and the highlevel differences to expect/anticipate (including tracks that are 'invisible' - don't we already have those??? :-)). Then I started dusting. There were quite a few ...

I have been slowly plodding away, and I do mean slowly. Yet I continue to rise in the top 100 standings. I recently passed someone whose score didn't change over several weeks. The score of the person behind me also hasn't changed in a long time. Looking forward it seems that the scores of the next ...

I can't give any official answer for this, just my opinion. Several years ago I read that if the surface isn't in focus, then reject the movie as a 'bad focus'. However, you have to be able to go at least a bit lower than the surface. Your example move doesn't seem to bad to me, the track is down at...

I have noticed the same. The movie quality seems significantly better.

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...

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 t...

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 re...

I would like to add my 2 cents. I won't quit because I really do believe in the project. However, some of the calibration tracks just seem way to hard. Do they really reflect the potential tracks? In Phase I it was stated that tracks 'really should' go well below the bottom focus. That idea seems to...

I just read Andrew's latest update (http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... update.php). It sounds to me that Phase 3 is *FINALLY* lurching forward! Hot Dog! Maybe soon.

Chuck

Where is the 'track' in movie ID 9250682V1? If it is the spec at 268, 328 - well that looks more like dust on the lens than a track. Everything on the image shifts with the up/down adjustment EXCEPT that spot. Nothing else is in focus very long. If we are supposed to be looking for things that *COUL...

To further the last point, even the 'real' people don't have any idea what to expect and missed/dismissed what may be some important tracks. They thought that they had an idea of where a stream of dust was and designed the experiment to capture that dust. Based on the geometry parameters and some me...

From what I have gleaned from other reading, all of the currently scanned images have been reviewed. There seems to be a traffic jam in the clean room getting more sections of the aerogel scanned, which seems to be delaying the third cycle (due about a year ago). If you look at your events you see t...

Like many other dusters, I have been annoyed by the somewhat ridiculous CMs. The explanation that they are useful to determine detection thresholds makes sense. However, regardless of what 'they' say, the CMs are still training movies, whether intentionally or not. I have been thinking about this fo...

There are over 27,000 registered dusters. However, I have been checking the scores of people around me and they aren't changing very quickly. As a result I am steadily climbing in my position. How many people are actually reviewing movies on an average day? How many dusters are actually contributing...

During phase 1 I asked a question about track vs. focus depth. The answer was that the expected dust particle energy would yield a track depth significantly greater than the VM focus depth. Hence, all tracks would be visible from the surface to the bottom of focus. Did someone change their mind abou...