cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/52943342

Hey everyone!

I’m forming a team for a citizen science project called IASC — International Astronomical Search Collaboration and I’m looking for teammates! Interested?

It’s nothing too crazy and the process can be underwhelming. I’ll say that just so you don’t expect anything extraordinary.

Basically, what we’d have to do is analyse images that will be sent to us from these two observatories in Hawaii called Pan-STARRS 1 and 2. And we’d have to look for moving possibily unidentified objects and send an report to IASC (the organization behind it).

It’s super quick and simple, and it really shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes per pack out of your day and you’ll have an entire month to sort through the packs. So, time really isn’t an issue and you can do things on your own time.

This is a great way to be part of hands-on science. You’re helping scientists track objects and identify new ones. This is very relevant, especially on a planetary defense level. You can’t protect yourself from a threat you don’t see coming.

They offer certificates to all participants, and the certificates are pretty neat.

Requirements/preferences:

  • Willing to commit some time to analyzing telescope images
  • Preferably located in the Americas, Europe, or Africa (similar time zones are a plus)

Relevant links: https://science.nasa.gov/citizen-science/international-astronomical-search-collaboration/ http://iasc.cosmosearch.org/

If you want in or have questions, lmk below :)

(Sorry if this isn’t allowed mods. I couldn’t find anything that said I couldn’t do this in the rules T-T)

  • XeroxCool@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    I thought this was all fairly automated at this point. Are we talking about running analysis programs locally or are we sitting there doing blink comparator style viewing?

    Ctrl+tab is how I play “spot the difference” between pdfs in Adobe. If you’re every looking for minute differences to a document (or catch accidental changes), it’s a neat tip. Then you can tell your coworkers “this is how they found pluto” as you point to their mild text omission

    • ThatEngineeringGuy@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      You’d be surprised. Automated software has a threshold for signal-to-noise ratio to avoid false positives. Human eyes (us hunters) are much better at spotting faint moving objects that dip below the threshold of the automated pipelines. AI is mostly used for monitoring objects and it can be used to discover new ones, but for faint detections, human eyes are the way to go.

      And kind of? The software does have an option called “Blink” and what it does is alternate in between the four .fit images in each image pack. And what you’ll look for is essentially:

      • Objects that don’t have a known object overlay
      • Objects that move in all four frames and that move around the same distance in all of them.
      • That check all the other technicals.
        • ThatEngineeringGuy@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          3·
          19 hours ago

          Each campaign lasts around a month, and the amount of packs per team can vary; I’ve seen 15 packs at the lowest and 25 at the highest. How many packs each team member will get will depend on how many members there are. Usually, If there are 5 members, and 25 packs, it’d be logical for each member to get 5 packs to analyse that month.

          I’ll send you the invite. Check DMs ;)