Xandu - Slashdot User

Submission + - Distributed Project to Classify SDSS Galaxies (galaxyzoo.org)

Submitted by

Xandu

on Wednesday February 18, 2009 @12:50PM

Xandu writes: "Be part of a human Beowulf by helping classify millions of galaxies from the SDSS at the Galaxy Zoo. From their about page:
Those involved are directly contributing to scientific research, while getting an opportunity to view the beautiful and varied galaxies that inhabit our universe. Why do we need people to do this, rather than just using a computer? The simple answer is that the human brain is much better at recognizing patterns than a computer. Galaxies are complicated objects that vary in appearance enormously, and yet in some ways they can be very similar. We could write a computer program to classify these galaxies, and many researchers have, but so far none have really done a good enough job. We have not been able to make computers 'see past' the complexity, to reliably identify the similarities that appear obvious to our eyes and brain. For now, and probably for some time yet, people do the best job of classifying galaxies.
"

Submission + - BLAST! Telescope documentary premieres Tuesday (blastthemovie.com)

Submitted by

Xandu

on Sunday April 20, 2008 @02:41PM

Xandu writes: "A documentary film about the BLAST balloon-borne telescope is about to premiere at the Toronto Hot Docs film festival. BLAST is a submillimeter telescope that floats on a balloon 37km in the air while observing the earliest star-formation and earliest galaxies. It's two science flights have been covered on Slashdot, the first from Kiruna, Sweden and the second from McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Virtually all the software used on BLAST is open source, and the kst display program has been discussed here as well. If you live in or near Toronto, it's showing twice, Tuesday evening and Saturday afternoon. The film contrasts the science with the human element and hardships endured while working in such exotic locations. Naturally, the movie trailer is online."

Submission + - BLAST Telescope about to Launch from Antarctica

Submitted by

mtruch

on Wednesday December 20, 2006 @08:57PM

mtruch writes: "BLAST, the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope is about to be launched from McMurdo Station, Antarctica. BLAST is a 2700 kg telescope with a 2 meter primary mirror that hangs from a 1.1 million cubic metre balloon floating at an altitude of 38 km that will study the star formation history of the universe. It will float west at nearly constant latitude for about 14 days until it is (hopefully) located over McMurdo again and will be terminated and recovered. Real time position and flight track is available from the CSBF. Watch the launch live via a crappy webcam link. Three of the graduate students working on the project have photo blogs of much of the prep period, and specifically Don's blog should have launch photos soon (bandwidth to/from McMurdo is at a premium).

BLAST made it on slashdot in the past, when it launched from Sweden in June 2005, and indirectly with an interview with Prof. Barth Netterfield and George Staikos. Yes, the flight computers still run Slack, and yes, we still use kst for data viewing and analysis. There is Discovery Science show about BLAST and high-altitude balloons, and a future documentary film being made about BLAST."

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