Complaint Dept. for Tutorial Update - Movie #11

[fjgiie]

Hi soon to be searchers,
Here is an image of the aerogel tiles in the metal holder. The aluminum tape can be seen on the back, or under the tiles. This image is looking directly down on the top surface of the tiles.



As Anna explained, a mirror is placed under the tiles so light can enter where there is no tape.

Thanks,
fjgiie

[specks]

Thanks for that, fjgiie.
I'm looking at the image with my magnifying glass. Wait. I think I see a .....

[Sharqua]

I also viewed #11 from the tutorial and found it very hard to perceive the track, but there is one more way to enhance your recognition for tiny details: use a magnifier (software, of course). As I'm running Linux I used KMag in a project for searching near earth asteroids. A similiar app is certainly part of Windows. You may try that out with the tutorial image #11 and talk about your experience.

Very good, Klaus. Spacewatch?

Indeed, I agree that this is a good way to magnify what is on the screen. It pixellates the image just a bit, but the "clearer" aspect of that tiny little track in #11 becomes a little easier to see.

I think I can fill in some of the details here for how to use the Windows magnifier AND use the focus bar at the same time.

I am writing this explanation from a machine with the Windows XP Media Center OS. I do know, however, that this also works on a regular XP OS, as I used it over on Spacewatch.

• First, you need to locate the Magnifier software. If you are using Windows XP, go to your START menu, select PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, ACCESSIBILITY, and click the MAGNIFIER menu item.
  
  The very top of your screen should change over to show a magnified selection, usually of whatever your mouse is close to.
  
  A window will also come up with "Magnifier Settings" in its title bar. Don't close this window. Instead, move it off to one side, near the edge of the screen.
  
  To start, you want the "Follow mouse cursor" checkbox selected. This will cause the magnified portion (top of your screen) to follow you.
  
  Now move your mouse to where it is pointing at the track you are interested in.
  
  Finally, hold down the ALT key and simultaneously press the letter M to DE-SELECT the "Follow mouse cursor" checkbox. Normally you would have used your mouse to click this checkbox, but to move your mouse and do the de-select would cause the magnifier to move, and we don't want that. Thus, we use the keyboard shortcut.

Now your mouse can fly off on its own and the magnifier remains focused on the track. You can now move your mouse to the blue focus bars to adjust the focus movie, and the track will be adjusted in the magnifier pane. MOVE YOUR MOUSE SLOWLY. The magnifier will cause a slideshow effect if you move it too fast.

I think that's everything. If anybody else thinks of anything to add, by all means do so.

Regards,

-Shar

[MDG]

Hi Shar,

Thanks for the tip, I going to try it out, that #11 movie was difficult.
figiie, thanks for the image - nice to see a close up of our project.
Glad to see more people on board - just wish I wasn't the only one registered on the whole African continent, , it's kinda lonely.
Hopefully we get "The Email" soon. Can't wait to get started...............

Michelle

[fjgiie]

Hi Michelle,
The clipped image above came from this JPL site:
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/photo/spacecraft.html

Down near the bottom of the page is a 1 MB image that is huge. Expand it out.
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/images/gal ... 98_12a.jpg
I think that is it. Just keep looking around NASA, Planetary Society, and JPL and you can get tired of looking.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to cmullin ! July 24th

Thanks,
fjgiie

[MDG]

Hi fjgiie,

Followed that second link: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/images/gal ... 98_12a.jpg
WOW...... it's really cool when it's expanded.
thanks

regards
Michelle

[Sharqua]

A question comes to mind: Anna, how does the team plan to remove the dust you/we find once it's found? A super-tiny needle? A jackhammer?

Inquiring minds want to know!

-Shar

[Klaus]

Hallo Shar,

Yes, I volunteered on the FMO project but was too late to find one.
It'a real pity that this project has been closed.

Greetings to all of you from good old Germany.

Klaus

[Sharqua]

Yes, I volunteered on the FMO project but was too late to find one.
It'a real pity that this project has been closed.

Greetings to all of you from good old Germany.

Ew... I'm sorry to hear it has closed. I had to drop out shortly before it closed, as I was awarded a new position where I work. My new hours prevented me from helping out anymore.

I actually did find one FMO but it was considered unsuitable for recovery. I don't remember the reason why now, but I was very disappointed at the time.

-Shar

[Wolter]

A question comes to mind: Anna, how does the team plan to remove the dust you/we find once it's found? A super-tiny needle? A jackhammer?

Inquiring minds want to know!

-Shar

A lot of interesting information can be found on: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/science/details.html

About the recovery of the particals, it states:
"The captured particle is seen optically just beyond the tip of the cone, and it can be recovered by a variety of techniques, ranging from extraction with a needle, to microtoming, and focused ion beam etching. Recovered samples are then treated by sequential analysis techniques that have been developed for the analysis of small meteoritic samples and IDPs."

Perhaps some additional study is needed for understanding some of the techniques mentioned here, but there you go

[albutterworth]

Hi Sharqua

A question comes to mind: Anna, how does the team plan to remove the dust you/we find once it's found? A super-tiny needle? A jackhammer?

Inquiring minds want to know!

-Shar

Welcome to our stock-in trade at Space Sciences Lab! Long before Andrew came up with the Stardust@home project, our group has been pioneering techniques to extract precious Stardust samples from aerogel.

One very successful technique uses a computer controlled microscope, micromanipulaters and very sharp glass needles to carefully mine out tiny volumes of aerogel containing a whole Stardust track, without damaging the surrounding collector. We call them 'keystones' and they are held by tiny microfabricated silicon handles.

From keystones we can extract particles if they are big enough (a few microns), or analyse them as they are, for example using focused X-rays.

My colleagues Andrew Westphal, Christopher Snead and Zack Gainsforth have produced over 100 keystones from the Stardust comet aerogel.
Stardust science images are still embargoed, but here are a couple of images from our paper [Westphal A.J. et al., Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 2003. 38 p. 5280]

In our clean room, extracting 'keystones' from an aerogel tile flown on Mir


Anatomy of a 'keystone'. Look for the shape of the track - side view. It's about 60 microns wide. The particle entered the aerogel travelling toward the lower left.



We plan to include a lot more of what we do on our website. We want to launch first though


Anna

[Sharqua]

To make a long response short:

Toooo cool!

[bommers]

I will have to agree.... that is way to cool... keep it coming... now that i have had a taste of what is to come i can hardly wait till my next fix....