More Suprime-Cam Images on Comet Hunters
We’re in the home stretch for the project, we’ve got the last set of Suprime-Cam asteroid images on the site for review. These were in directories we had issues uploading onto the site. So we waited until the end to go back and upload any remaining files we were missing. We need your help to complete this dataset. Once we’re completely finished, the science team can complete the full review of the Suprime-Cam images where the majority of classifiers thought the asteroids looked significantly different from the stars. We haven’t yet found a main belt comet, but we’ll be able to put constraints on how frequent asteroids exhibit this type of behavior. Help us finish the Suprime-Cam images today at http://www.comethunters.org
Currently Out of Data on Comet Hunters
A quick note to give an update on the project. Thanks to your help we’re out of images on Comet Hunters. By completing the active images on the site, the project has searched the last big batch of data from our Suprime Cam search. This set of images nearly completes our current Archival Suprime Cam search. We have some partial or incomplete downloads to upload, and those images will need review on the site. I’m aiming to get these images uploaded in the next few weeks. I’ll keep you posted.
With this set of images, the science team can focus on reviewing the candidate comets (based on your classifications) and estimating what is the activity rate in the main belt of the asteroid belt. We’ll keep you posted on the science team’s progress.
We’re still having some processing issues with the HSC imagery. I hope we’ll have new images for that search soon, but in the meantime thank you for all the time and effort you’ve put into Comet Hunters. From all of us on the science team, we really appreciate it.
Update on Comet Hunters
I know it’s been a long time since we’ve posted on the blog. As most astronomers and planetary scientists, the science team is juggling multiple projects and other support and service duties. It’s a new year, and some of us have have more time to devote back to Comet Hunters. Many thanks to our Talk moderators who have been pointing out are tirelessly pointing out questions and helping out with new members of the Comet Hunters community.
We’ve still been having issues getting new HSC subject images ready for the site, for now I’ve paused that workflow to focus on the Archival search, which is planned to be the project’s first paper. Thanks to your help we’ve moved through of the search, and we’ve uploaded the new batch of images. This set will basically finish off our sample of asteroids we wanted to search for the first paper. That’s why we decided to focus on this right now, rather than the HSC search.
This batch of Archival images includes some of the asteroids observed at launch but has improved positional accuracy and has sources identified in the images that were popping up as blank. It will important to have these classifications so that all the asteroid observations were produced the same way .
Thanks for your help with Comet Hunters. More news soon.
New HSC Images On Comet Hunters
We have new HSC images available on Comet Hunters from last August now available now on the site. With more asteroids, there are more chances to identify cometary activity. If you don’t spot a tail, that’s okay too. You’re helping us figure out how frequent these cometary outbursts are.
Also today, the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey, which we get our asteroid images from, just had their first public data release. You can read more about it, and see some stunning images from the HSC camera here.
Happy Comet Hunting!
Making a Push on the Suprime-Cam Search and Waiting on New HSC Images
I wanted to give an update on both Comet Hunters Searches
HSC Search: Thanks to your help, we’ve completed all the live HSC images. We’re currently working on processing more images. We had some data processing challenges that are not solved. We hope to get new images on site by the end of February. Stay tuned for to this space for more updates.
Archival Search: We’re working towards the first paper, that will focus on the Suprime-Cam Archival Search. We’ve started to work on some of the paper text and analysis. One of the next steps is to compare to what automated analysis suggests might have a point-spread function. We think this would be an interesting comparison. We’d like to include as much completed Suprime-Cam observations in our analysis as possible. If you can spare some time, please classify an image or two on the Archival Search today at http://www.comethunters.org
Happy 1st Birthday Comet Hunters!
Image credit Will Clayton – flikr
Today marks one full year of Comet Hunters. It’s amazing how time flies while you’re having fun and exploring the Solar System! Thank you for all of your time and contributions. We really appreciate it. We couldn’t do this without the Comet Hunters volunteer community.
Over this year, the science team has been developing the analysis pipeline to combine the multiple classifications of each subject together. We’ve also reviewed possible comet candidates and also launched the Hyper Suprime-Cam search. In Year 2, we’ll work towards the project’s first science papers. I’ll be marking Comet Hunters’ birthday by sitting down in a coffee shop and writing some text about how the Comet Hunters website works for the start of our first science paper draft. Stay tuned to this space in the future for more paper and progress updates.
Help celebrate Comet Hunters’ first birthday by classifying an image or two at http://www.comethunters.org
Help Build a Better Zooniverse while Searching for Main-Belt Comets
Starting today you might see some new things popping up on Comet Hunters. These new features and surveys have been developed by the Zooniverse that may one day end up on all future new Zooniverse projects. The Comet Hunters community was selected to help to try these features out. During the next four weeks, selected Comet Hunters volunteers will receive an invitation to participate as you are classifying images in the HSC search workflow. If you just want to get on with the comet search, not to worry. You can opt out of participating or check out the Archival search which is exactly the same as before.
Thanks in advance for your help. Your feedback and interactions will help the Zooniverse to improve the current set of web tools and build better future Zooniverse projects.
Do Something Great with the BBC’s Sky at Night
Image credit: BBC/Sky at Night http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03xx5pm
A week and a half ago, during a trip to visit Oxford Zooniverse Headquarters, I traveled to Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory outside of Cambridge to meet with the Sky at Night’s co-presenter Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock. We talked about main-belt comets and how the public could get involved in Comet Hunters to search for these elusive breed of comets residing in the Solar System’s asteroid belt. In particular, I discussed the new HSC survey data that recently went live on the project. website.
Below is a link to a clip from Maggie encouraging people to join Comet Hunters.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03xx5pm
This is part of the BBC’s Do Something Great Campaign, which promotes and encourages ways for everyone to get involved in volunteering and doing good. We’re thrilled to be involved in this effort with the Sky at Night.
Help astronomers find main-belt comets today at http://www.comethunters.org and if you’re based in the UK check out the Sky at Night’s latest episode on iPlayer.
Introducing the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey Main-belt Comet Search
As of today, Comet Hunters has a new dataset and a new look. You’ll notice there’s now a button called ‘HSC Survey Search’ on the front page of the website. We are thrilled to announce the incorporation of data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program. Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) is the largest field-of-view camera ever stuck on an 8-10-m class telescope. HSC covers nine times the size of the full moon in a single pointing!
What makes this so exciting is that the asteroid images you can review now on Comet Hunters from this survey are as from as close to right off the telescope as we can get. This means we can follow-up and try to catch the asteroid still in the act if Comet Hunters spots a tail. No one has ever looked at these images for main-belt comets before. Your eyes will be one of the first to view these images. Who knows what we’ll find!
The old Comet Hunters classification interface you know and love is still around. It’s now under the ‘Archival Data Search’ on the Comet Hunters front page. Looking for main-belt comets in the archival Suprime-Cam data is still extremely useful, and we’ll be keeping that classification interface going in parallel to the HSC Survey Search. You’ll notice the HSC images are a bit different than the Archival Data Search. There’s a tutorial and help buttons that will show you how find tails in the HSC images. You can also find more information on the Research and FAQ pages as well.
Dive into the HSC Survey data and help search for main-belt comets today!
New Comet Hunters Data Available!
Thanks to everyone who has helped out with Comet Hunters so far. As noted in a previous blog post, with your help, we’ve completed the first batch of images from launch and have compiled a preliminary list of potential comet candidates based on your classifications, and are currently in the process of vetting those candidates.
We are pleased to announce that new data is now available! We’ve fixed some issues with our data processing software (in particular, a bug that led to a large number of off-center asteroids that many of you noticed), and so this new set should be easier to analyze and classify. With the newly uploaded batch of brand-new images as well as some re-processed images that we’ve shown before, we hope to identify many more main-belt comet candidates with your help. Good luck and happy hunting!
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