Inverted Glass

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Arturo
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Inverted Glass

Post by Arturo »

Hi, I've just started hunting dust and I have a question I couldn't find in the forum.

In the tutorial (http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... _start.php), where they show what the tracks look like from the side, it looks like a standing glass (like a glass of wine), but as I see it threedimensionally in my mind when I move de focus, tracks show up like a glass upside down, the opening can be seen more at the bottom of the focus, more "inside" de aerogel's surface, and the kind of cone that should follow (as in the tutorial) can be seen when focusing up, higher towards the aerogel's surface. Am I correct? If not how is that I "see" it that way? Are we inspecting the images in the right orientation?

Regards,

Arturo
fjgiie
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Find surface first

Post by fjgiie »

Hi Arturo,

Step One - With the focus bars find the surface of the Aerogel - There will be dust and trash on the surface. See this link which is Tutorial number 2 and see the black trash on the surface.
http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... e_number=2

Step Two - After finding the surface bring the mouse pointer down the focus bars, the blue bars as you focus down into the Aerogel.

There is no wine glass above the surface -NO-
The rim of the wine glass is at or slightly below the surface and it is upright, not upside down. :)

Thanks

fjgiie
TimStrange
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Post by TimStrange »

I'll take a stab at answering this. First, understand that the movies you are seeing with tracks have been manufactured, they are the callibration movies (unless you're very lucky and get a real one with a track). No one is really sure what a real one is going to look like, so I'll be talking about how the callibration movies with tracks look to me.

Focus above the surface: At this point, nothing of the track is visable.

Focus at the surface: At this point the track is not very visable. I think it mostly has to do with the fact that the sides of the track haven't been established yet.

Focus below the surface: Here is where the track starts to show up. What stands out are the edges of the tracks, these are the dark rings we see that stay in focus as we dive deeper into the gel.

To me, I would think of this more as a glass standing up, but we never really get to the bottom of it. So I guess it would be more like just a tube.

Hope this helps.
Happy Trails!
Arturo
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Post by Arturo »

Thaks for the quick responses, I studied Biology and I am a bit used to working with microscopes, I understand the steps of the process and can easily locate the surface, I understand that there is no track avobe the surface, is only that the calibration movies with tracks that I have come across (very easily identified by the way) all seem to me to be inverted wine glasses, and that is why I asked. Is true that they are more likely tubes or truncated cones, but for me the wider and more crearly defined edges of the track become visible more at the bottom... Well, I have just started doing this... I presume I'm getting the wrong impression, plus the fact they are not real tracks. By the way, what is the estimated proportion of images with tracks out of the total amount of images? I red somewhere that the satellite collected like a kilogram of dust (amount that seemed to me like too much) that would be a LOT of particles. TimStrange, when you say that no one is really sure what a real one is going to look like, does this mean that no one has ever seen a real one?

Many thanks,

Arturo
TimStrange
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Post by TimStrange »

Arturo wrote:TimStrange, when you say that no one is really sure what a real one is going to look like, does this mean that no one has ever seen a real one?
Arturo
Correct. No one has yet seen a track produced by what is definitely an interstellar dust particle (that is what we are in the process of doing here). We, the Startdust volunteers, have identified a few tracks that may turn out to have been created by them, but until it is confirmed that it is definitely an IS particle, it is only an assumption. That being said, I think they are fairly confident that it will be similar in appearance to what we have been seeing in the cal movies, especially the very small track ones.
the moon
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Post by the moon »

I think the mods missed the point of your original question, so I'll help ya out. I posted this a few days ago.
the moon wrote:As you can see from the pictures of tracks taken from the side after they've been cut out, like this
Image
The tracks start right below the surface.

The calibration movies are misleading because they made them by digitally cutting the tracks out of pictures from another collector, just the little circles of the tracks. Then they pasted those handful of pictures into 1000 movies from this collector. Did they put them at the right depth? Who knows, I'm guessing some are put deeper then they were in their original movie. Notice how they all sort of come into focus the same distance from the bottom of the focus range, no matter where the surface is in that movie. Also notice in the first 2 tutorial movies, which are real, when focused on the surface the tracks are blurry and within 5 frames down they are clearly visable.
Now to finally answer your question. It looks like you're viewing the track backwards because even the lowest focus point in these movies is very close to the surface compaired to how deep the tracks go. Like if you were viewing that picture above in a focus movie, you'd probably only see the first half inch down on the picture, before it even gets to its widest point.
greuti
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Post by greuti »

I don't know whether the calibration movies are misleading. I think they're exact positioned and each time compared to the original position in the other collector.

My interpretation of that we're looking at the tracks in the areogel is, the black distinct circle appears just around the widest points of the track because it's that point where the black border appears most distinct when we look straightly at it from above. In that view the "blurry section" is the distinct rounded border just beneath the surface. That explain also the unseeable bullet hole direct at the surface because there the track border is thinnest to our view.
Last edited by greuti on Fri Sep 15, 2006 2:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
the moon
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Post by the moon »

greuti wrote:I don't know whether the calibration movies are misleading. I think they're exact positioned and each time compared to the original position in the other collector.
That would take too long to do 1000 times.
Arturo
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My humble interpretation the image

Post by Arturo »

First of all, thanks everyone for taking the time to read this thread.

I don't know if I understand the picture correctly, this is my interpretation:

As I see in the image, quite often the impact creates like a balloon just underneath the surface (we can see two in the image), and afterwards it becomes a clean converging tube (standing up wine glass shape) at the end, that the focus hardly reaches as it is too deep.

Sometimes the impact is less explosive and only leaves a clean converging tube (we can see one in the picture, at the top)

What hapens if we find a ballon kind impact and the focus doesn't get too far down? That we only see the top of the balloon, the diverging (upside down wine glass shape) part of it as we go down. That is what I meant in my first post.
DustBuster
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Re: Inverted Glass

Post by DustBuster »

Arturo wrote:Hi, I've just started hunting dust and I have a question I couldn't find in the forum.

In the tutorial (http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... _start.php), where they show what the tracks look like from the side, it looks like a standing glass (like a glass of wine), but as I see it threedimensionally in my mind when I move de focus, tracks show up like a glass upside down, the opening can be seen more at the bottom of the focus, more "inside" de aerogel's surface, and the kind of cone that should follow (as in the tutorial) can be seen when focusing up, higher towards the aerogel's surface. Am I correct? If not how is that I "see" it that way? Are we inspecting the images in the right orientation?
Hi Arturo.
To answer this original question (as I understand it), No. I don't know how or why you see it that way, but you should be viewing the 'wine glass' shape from the top down (and they will only be oriented this way or low angled as in Tutorial 10. You will not see impacts coming from behind (where the WILD2 samples were collected).
Arturo wrote:Sometimes the impact is less explosive and only leaves a clean converging tube (we can see one in the picture, at the top)
If you are referring to the 'sliver' shape above the two tracks in that image, I don't believe that is a track, more likely a crack or other artifact. When a particle impacts the nanofoam, it converts that energy into heat vaporizing the aerogel and causing the balloon shape as the particle decelerates.
Arturo wrote: What hapens if we find a ballon kind impact and the focus doesn't get too far down? That we only see the top of the balloon, the diverging (upside down wine glass shape) part of it as we go down. That is what I meant in my first post.
You should probably only see the 'balloon' portion of the track, as the focus usually won't go down far enough to see the 'tube' or the particle, but if there is no 'tube', chances are the particle was vaporized as well... keep in mind this is all theory and speculation.

Hope that helps.
greuti
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Post by greuti »

but if there is no 'tube', chances are the particle was vaporized as well...
That Movie 7249257V1 (167 / 47 / Passed cut 1 / IS candidate lower right) could be an example where the particle was rather vaporized than caused a subsonic tube further below, because of the "track" seems suddenly to end in a manner that you wouldn't expect... sadly if so.
Wolter
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Post by Wolter »

Not necceseraly. Stardust is expected to be only 0.1 till 1 micron in diameter.
So the subsonic tube can be to small to focus on with the current magnification.
Just dusting... Image
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