ASTRO:Help me, Help you.

Peter Hucker wrote:

On Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:15:15 -0500, "G\"Laptop\""
wrote:


Why post this? I mean, I can imagine you mention your site/program when
it's
finished ...
Um, it's not my website nor do I run or manage it. I was given this link by
another AA guy. I just thought it would be interesting to help out.

but it isn't. Your program is still in beta testing?
Again not my website. Not my program.

And I also question the use of it ...
Ok.

there is software around that all ready can do that.
True: They are also always improving on the star maps and charts of the
night sky. Other programs are being made or revised. Starry Night and others
always updating and coming out with more and more...

And besides this all: your service is also "taking the
fun out of it". Isn't part (or for some a major part) of the fun in astro
photography to discover yourself what you have captured?
Taking the fun out of it? I don't understand this? If I was doing this, I
would always be having fun, doing something I love to do...



Menno


Apparently, some of you think I run this website or program. No I don't. I
was just showing this to anyone who would think this would be a good thing
to help. But it has offended well 3 of you so far. I wasn't after offended
you guys. Or be-littling you, ****ing on your cereal or what ever. To me
when I read the website. I thought this would be a website to contribute.
For anyone who might want to help out. Since we all here contribute in some
way or another. Didn't think it was going to start a flame war...

The "Help me, Help you" Phrase in the Subject header. Was taken from the
Movie Jerry McGuire movie. Sorry if it looks like ME as myself. I just
thought of that phrase when I wondered about what I should put in the
Subject header. Just popped in my head...

I was going by the "We have built this astrometry service" part.
--
This message has been brought to you by solar and wind power. Who needs the national grid?
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

A fella was saying to his friend,
"My wife seems to have developed some sort of fixation that her collection of fur coats will be stolen.
When I came home early one day last week, I found she'd hired someone to GUARD them!
In fact, she stationed the poor guy right inside the closet!"

old joke but still funny (and true)!. Thats the sad part.
But Im easy .... tell another and I will probably thinks its good.

I Agree Rick...

"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...
I wasn't chewing you out at all. You were just passing on the info you had
received. I don't "Kill the Messenger", or didn't realize that's how it
sounded. I knew you had no connection with it. I'm truly sorry it sounded
that way.

I was just expressing my frustration at those who are pushing this as
something it isn't. Or doesn't appear to be anyway. I've seen three
press releases from them. Each told me, in a different way, I am too
stupid to know what is in my own pictures. That I have no idea what a
proper meta tag for a photo is and I am negligent for not saving this
data. I found that all very insulting. I wrote back to explain this and
was told again I didn't know what the heck I was doing and but they wanted
to help me know what I was taking images of. That is, they sent me
another form letter with the same crap in it.

As I mentioned. If they want to be a storehouse for ALL usable astro
photos taken by all astronomers, pro and serious amateur, world wide in a
searchable database so a researcher could pop up an area of the sky that
they're interested in and see it over a century of time that would be a
super project that could turn up some interesting discoveries of transient
events, such as Mc Neil's Nebula in past appearances, as well as errors in
proper motion data and many other things like comet and asteroid
recoveries.

But to do it by telling amateur astronomers that they are too stupid to
put the needed info in their photos and that they could somehow divine
important things such as the type of CCD, telescope and filters used
(needed to know the spectral response of the photo as well as compression
distortions from NABG CCD's and do so from a JPG image full of artifacts
and compression distortions of color and intensity, blows my mind. I
didn't know they were psychic. Without that data the usefulness of such a
large database would be compromised. But they don't seem to trust
amateurs to know this and in fact tell us we don't.

It gets worse when you look at what they say they want to do in the
future. The releases all said they hope to be able to eventually analyze
a photo to the point where they can tell where on the earth and when it
was taken. Uh -- that's in my meta tag guys and with far more accuracy
than you could ever hope to derive from studying a photo. I can see that
useful for old photos found stashed in some University archive however.
Still looking at the plate and emulsion used should narrow down things
about as much as deriving proper motions from the plates which seems to be
their idea. Finding several double stars and determining their brightness
might be an even more accurate way as each will have a different period so
would hit the exact same ratio of brightness only once every few decades
in some cases. That could pin it down to the day. Yet that isn't
mentioned, only using much less accurate proper motion is. It leaves me
wondering how much thought went into this, very little it seems.

The main thrust at their website (very different from the press releases I
got) is that they'll tell beginners what's in their photos. That's fine
though Aladin, an on line database run by SIMBAD has been doing that for
years now and will tell you far more about what's in the photo than this
outfit will, even leading you to all papers written on these objects. So
if that's their intent they are reinventing the wheel and doing a far less
complete job of it. Though I'll admit ALADIN isn't user friendly and
takes some getting used to. Maybe they should write a better interface
for ALADIN rather than reinvent it. Besides, as I mentioned, standard
software used by imagers does the ID for you. And does a far more
complete job. Or a visit to your local astronomy club will also get your
beginner photos ID'd for you and no fancy computer system needed.

My feeling is these guys invented a way to ID any starfield without first
knowing the general area to look. This is new, I'll give them that! But
now are looking for a use for it and this is the best they can come up
with. They then give it a lot of spin, likely the same spin they gave
getting the grant money to do this, and now are stuck with trying to find
a use for it to get more grant money. Something very hard to come by! It
could be useful in the case of old archived photos in which the location
data has been lost. Thus my suggestion that this be an archive for photos
of all era's to look for events that have been overlooked.

But to tell me I am too ignorant or dumb to meta tag the data I take sure
isn't the way to get me interested in helping the project!


Rick



G"Laptop" wrote:
Jesus Christ Rick!
Chill out, have a beer or glass of wine. Damn you having a bad night?
Seem to have hit a button or something...
Dude, I having nothing to do with this website.
Contact these guys, Core Team Members of
astrometry.badhorriblesoftwareguys.com


Put your rant in an email to them...
When I read the website over. I had a different idea of what this website
was for...
There's a couple of guys in my astro group who showed me this. Who want
to help them out...
I'll show your post to them. I haven't signed up yet. I was thinking
about it. But I don't know now...

(Began Heavy Sarcasm)
PS: Can I have my butt back now? After you chewed me out...
(End Heavy Sarcasm)

reply to draft dodger wrote:


Rick Johnson wrote:


I wasn't chewing you out at all.


Just everything he's doing.



VERY WRONG! G has nothing what so ever to do with the project, I was
well aware of that when I made the first post and never even mentioned
him at all, just the project and its press release! All he did was
note its existence. Nothing wrong with that at all. He wasn't the
target of my wrath, I'm sorry it appeared he was to some. My wrath is
directed toward whoever told the world amateurs are incompetent to do
imaging correctly. I should have made that clearer, I agree. I was
just pointing out how idiotic the press release and project as stated in
the release is. The project may even have some good points and it was
the press release that's totally out to lunch. I don't know. But the
totally tactless press releases are very insulting to the amateur
community. At least the ones I got sure were and the site is very
incomplete making it impossible to learn more.

To quote from the release I got:

"Amateurs are often unable to determine what is in the great image they
took. Provide us the image and we'll tell you what is in the image and
the exact coordinates of the image. ... We hope in the future to
develop the ability to determine when and where your image was taken."
They go on to talk about how amateurs don't use meta-tags and how
they'll provide this information for amateurs.

We do use meta-tags with far more info than they can possibly provide,
we do know what is in the photos we take, I guess the writer never heard
of McNeil's Nebula, and in my case and many others the data is already
being used by amateurs and professionals for scientific work. Those
aren't the photos I post here, by the way. Yet the whole tone of the
press release is that we can't do this without their help.

There are archives of very old plates, long forgotten at many
professional observatories where this data is lost and to even get a
general idea of the date, time and field of view would be a very
desirable project. I'd support that in a second but that's not what the
press releases I got are about, unfortunately. They just demean
amateurs. My wrath goes to the unknown writer of the press releases
telling the world amateurs are incompetent. This has absolutely nothing
to do with G and I apologize for making it sound that way.

Rick

Why post this? I mean, I can imagine you mention your site/program when
it's
finished ...
Um, it's not my website nor do I run or manage it. I was given this link
by another AA guy. I just thought it would be interesting to help out.

but it isn't. Your program is still in beta testing?
Again not my website. Not my program.

And I also question the use of it ...
Ok.


You have to admid: it's posted like it is your website and project ;-)
But doesn't matter .... :-))

Menno