EPOXI Mission News |
EPOXI Mission News |
May 28 2008, 07:48 PM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1582 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Vermont Member No.: 530 |
Looks like the Deep Impact list has been revived. Posting here for others to get back on board:
********************************************************************** EPOXI E-News #1 May 2008 ********************************************************************** WELCOME BACK! Did you know that the Deep Impact Flyby Spacecraft has a new assignment? The EPOXI mission combines two exciting science investigations in an entirely new mission that re-uses the Deep Impact spacecraft. The Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization (EPOCh) investigation will observe stars that have known transiting giant planets. The Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI) of comets observes comet 103P/Hartley 2 during a close flyby in October 2010. The education and public outreach team decided to get back in touch with our Deep Impact friends and begin sending out newsletters again to keep you informed of these two exciting investigations! During the two years since our last newsletter for Deep Impact, the science team has stayed busy continuing to do more analysis on the data collected in July 2005. The science team also proposed and was awarded an extended mission teaming up with a group from Goddard Space Flight Center. EPOXI website: http://epoxi.umd.edu/ Mission Overview: http://epoxi.umd.edu/1mission/index.shtml Press Releases: http://epoxi.umd.edu/7press/index.shtml DI Results: http://deepimpact.umd.edu/results/ ********************************************************************** MISSION STATUS Dr. Deming, Principal Investigator (PI) for the EPOCh portion of the mission, sends us the latest mission status report in which he tells us about the current observing target GJ436. “This is an exciting time for EPOCh, as we search for an exo-Earth orbiting a stellar neighbor of our Sun!” reports Dr Deming. He also talks about the plans to observe a very special planet in late May and early June. Read his status report as well as past reports from other team members at http://epoxi.umd.edu/1mission/status.shtml ********************************************************************** EPOCh TARGETS The EPOCh component of the EPOXI mission will carefully study a small number of stars in order to learn more about planets that we know are orbiting those stars by watching the planets as they transit (cross in front of) the star. EPOCh will also search for clues to other planets that might be orbiting the same stars. Read more about the EPOCh science targets to find out which stars are being observed. http://epoxi.umd.edu/2science/targets.shtml ********************************************************************** PLANET QUEST Are we alone? For centuries, human beings have pondered this question. Medieval scholars speculated that other worlds must exist and that some would harbor other forms of life. In our time, advances in science and technology have brought us to the threshold of finding an answer to this timeless question. The recent discovery of numerous planets around stars other than the sun confirms that our solar system is not unique. Indeed, these "exoplanets" appear to be common in our galactic neighborhood. The EPOCh investigation is part of a larger family of missions studying extrasolar planets. Learn more at the Jet Propulsion Lab Planet Quest Web site. http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm ********************************************************************** OBSERVING CHALLENGE The transits that will be studied for EPOCh are extremely difficult to observe because the change in brightness is very small and requires high precision photometry that can be accomplished with instruments on the Deep Impact spacecraft. Observers on Earth can still take a look at the stars in the night time sky. The selected stars are also pretty dim because we don’t want them to saturate or over expose the spacecraft instruments but they are bright enough to be visible in amateur telescopes if the sky conditions are good and the skies are dark. Like people, stars have multiple identifiers. EPOCh’s first target was a star labeled as HAT-P-4 by the scientists observing it. They made their own list of target stars so that was their shorthand name. But HAT-P-4 has numerous other names which are more useful in identifying it in other databases. HAT-P-4 = SAO 64638 = TYC 2569-1599-1 is a magnitude 11, G-class star located in the constellation Boötes. Chart: http://epoxi.umd.edu/2science/challenge.shtml ********************************************************************** SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Please forward this e-mail to others interested in NASA missions. New subscribers may join the EPOXI Mission e-news mailing list on our website at: http://epoxi.umd.edu/6outreach/newsletter.shtml |
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Aug 18 2011, 03:01 AM
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#301
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Member Group: Members Posts: 796 Joined: 27-February 08 From: Heart of Europe Member No.: 4057 |
I've made new entry on my blog, now with three Hartley 2 animations.
They are similar to my old Hartley 2 animation, but with more calibrated images (5 images vs. 43 images), they are more precise and much more detailed. Two animations are available on youtube - link 1, link 2. Third (animated gif) is on blog. -------------------- |
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Aug 18 2011, 04:47 AM
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#302
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Some of your best work yet
The second Youtube animation shows a lot of "sparkles" in the coma. Are these just noise/hot pixels amplified by the contrast stretch, which appear to move because of the morphing? Or are they comet snowballs twinkling in the sunlight, traceable from one frame to the next? -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Aug 18 2011, 06:42 AM
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#303
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2085 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
The gif on your site is just jaw-dropping; the snowballs gives a sense of place and movement so perfectly....
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Aug 18 2011, 12:45 PM
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#304
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Member Group: Members Posts: 796 Joined: 27-February 08 From: Heart of Europe Member No.: 4057 |
Thanks!
The second Youtube animation shows a lot of "sparkles" in the coma. Are these just noise/hot pixels amplified by the contrast stretch, which appear to move because of the morphing? Or are they comet snowballs twinkling in the sunlight, traceable from one frame to the next? I didn't trace "snowballs" in morphing, because this would be extremely difficult and time consuming (hundreds of working hours instead of tenths). This is reason, why I used original data in animated gif, so you can see global moving of snowballs around comet. So I think, that your sparkles are probably snowballs changing position from frame to frame (they disappear for little moment). If you are watching carefully, then you can see how some snowballs are moving around comet (but still animated gif is better in this way). -------------------- |
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Aug 21 2011, 07:28 AM
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#305
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
speaking of EPOXI and Deep Impact, does anybody know what is the current status of the mission? I understand that the 2nd extended mission was not funded, but is the spacecraft still being tracked? has it been put in hibernation?
any info? |
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Aug 24 2011, 07:32 PM
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#306
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
I have posted the same question to the Deep Impact facebook page and here is the answer (in first person...)
QUOTE I am still being tracked -- all spacecraft are tracked at some basic level. No, as far as I know, I'm not in hibernation... I actually took some pictures recently that I'm slowly radioing back to Earth.
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Oct 11 2011, 08:49 PM
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#307
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
The latest mission tracking requirements published on the DSN Resource Allocation Planning Service website confirm that Deep Impact will be routinely tracked at least once per week until at least 2021.
See http://rapweb.jpl.nasa.gov/Events/DIF_event.pdf and http://rapweb.jpl.nasa.gov/Requirements/DIF.pdf |
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Oct 12 2011, 12:17 AM
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#308
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14432 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Consider that a strawman placeholder for an Extended Extended mission. As of yet - no such mission has been approved/funded.
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Oct 12 2011, 09:52 AM
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#309
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Member Group: Members Posts: 106 Joined: 26-September 05 Member No.: 508 |
Here is another collaboration project. Daniel (machi) kindly made his animation frames available. Clearing the erroneous points due to jets took some time. Missing parts can be completed later for Celestia.
Attached File(s)
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Oct 12 2011, 02:38 PM
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#310
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Member Group: Members Posts: 796 Joined: 27-February 08 From: Heart of Europe Member No.: 4057 |
Cool!
It would be interesting compare volume of the final (celestia) model to official data - 0.84 km3. -------------------- |
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Nov 7 2011, 08:42 PM
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#311
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
the EPOXI mission site has made available FITS of the recently released deep sky pictures:
http://epoxi.umd.edu/3gallery/deepsky_challenge.shtml and http://epoxi.umd.edu/3gallery/deepsky.shtml for the original deep sky picture release |
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Nov 15 2011, 01:03 AM
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#312
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
I've just played a bit with the Deep Impact deep-sky images. They're very pretty, but cosmic ray hits are a problem. I strongly encourage UMSF members to go to the website Paolo linked to and do something with the data and submit whatever you do to their website. They seem very surprised not to have received any image submissions since they posted the data. We need to show them that it's worth their while to be so open with data! If you're not accustomed to FITS data, IMG2PNG can handle it, or you can use the FITS Liberator. I'd be happy to try to answer any questions about how to work with either one.
-------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Nov 15 2011, 09:12 AM
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#313
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Member Group: Members Posts: 796 Joined: 27-February 08 From: Heart of Europe Member No.: 4057 |
...They seem very surprised not to have received any image submissions since they posted the data. We need to show them that it's worth their while to be so open with data! ... I'm downloading M51 images for more than week (and still I have only 60%). After FUP depleted, I have now slow connection + their server is not much supportive for slow connections, so effective speed is now around 2048 bps! (Same as Pioneer 10 from Jupiter) BTW, nice results, I didn't realize, that they used imaging with filters, so results can be even more interesting (because of color), that those on their pages (brilliant work). -------------------- |
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Nov 15 2011, 02:47 PM
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#314
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 4763 Joined: 15-March 05 From: Glendale, AZ Member No.: 197 |
I'm downloading M51 images for more than week Maybe one of us could mail you a DVD next time -------------------- If Occam had heard my theory, things would be very different now.
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Nov 15 2011, 06:40 PM
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#315
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
Here's my take on the M51 set, longest exposure filter 1, 2 and 4 sets combined. Clear frames for luminosity, 514 and 750 nm filters for color.
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