[X] My Assistant

[Rakhir]

I don't found any post about Stardust@Home so I created a new thread.

Stardust@Home is a distributed search by volunteers for interstellar dust in the Stardust interstellar dust collector.

Volunteers have to pre-register for an expected start in spring of 2006. You will also have to pass a test to be qualified for the search.
Indeed, unlike the distributed computer projects running in background tasks, this project is using your eyes to scan "focus movies" thanks to a Virtual Microscope.

According to estimations, there should be about 45 interstellar dust impacts in the collector.

Besides the satisfaction of contributing actively to this sample return project, your name will appear as a co-author on the paper announcing the discovery of the particle.

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Rakhir

[dvandorn]

Finally got in and going, myself. Had an interesting one -- didn't take a screen cap or anything, since I just go along, give it my best shot, and go on to the next...

Anyway, there was one image that appeared to be pretty flat (no big slope on the subject), but two very, very small dark spots, maybe 1.5 microns or so based on the scale bar, came into focus at the deepest level. No track visible in any way, just a dark spot deep inside the aerogel. I marked the bigger of the two spots as a track, but that was a really soft identification.

I've also run across several images that do come into focus, but the perfect surface focus point is at the deepest focus setting on the adjustment bar. I reported those as "bad focus," since I figure the point of the exercise is to zoom your focus down into the aerogel. Any movie that doesn't let you get below the surface is, I figure, guilt of a focus problem.

Are y'all seeing the same kind of things?

Seems like almost all of the tracks I've seen are the ones in the test images... though my scoresheet says I've identified something like six tracks, and while a couple of them only have corroboration by one or two other people (out of 20 to 30 views), some of them have been pegged by a dozen or more people.

It's fun, and I feel like I'm actually doing something useful!

-the other Doug