First Signs of the NTPCkr

Message boards : SETI@home Science : First Signs of the NTPCkr
Message board moderation

To post messages, you must log in.

1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · Next

AuthorMessage
Profile Matt Lebofsky
Volunteer moderator
Project administrator
Project developer
Project scientist
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 1 Mar 99
Posts: 1444
Credit: 957,058
RAC: 0
United States
Message 743622 - Posted: 24 Apr 2008, 17:41:02 UTC

Just to show some non-zero amount of progress on the Near Time Persistency Checker (a.k.a. the NTPCkr, pronounced "nitpicker"), I added some new fields to the science status page showing previous signals found where the telescope is currently pointing:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sci_status.html

This isn't all that scientifically useful, but it is kind of interesting, and shows the basic guts of the NTPCkr are working - i.e. given a single "pixel" on the sky, show some basic up-to-the-minute stats about what we've seen there so far.

Please note that:

1. We divide the sky up into millions of such "pixels," and each contains anywhere from 0 to roughly 100000 signals of varying type. Don't get excited or depressed about any of these number you see.

2. If you watch the page, you'll note that "multiplets" (groups of similar signals of similar frequency seen over multiple observations) are rather common. So don't get too excited about those, either. This is all BEFORE we remove RFI and other garbage from the database.

3. I still haven't yet fixed known precession errors (which I mentioned before in recent tech news items) so the coordinates are slightly off, anyway, but nevertheless this gives you a rough idea of what we got.

The current NTPCkr work is focused on getting this running in near-real-time. This is the whole point of this extended project, as opposed to doing yet another one-fell-swoop kind of analysis which is painful and requires a month of focused manpower to do, which is why such things happen every few years. The grand hope of the NTPCkr is to be giving us good results every day.

More news as we progress, I guess...

- Matt
-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude
ID: 743622 · Report as offensive
Profile Sir Ulli
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 21 Oct 99
Posts: 2246
Credit: 6,136,250
RAC: 0
Germany
Message 743650 - Posted: 24 Apr 2008, 19:12:02 UTC

thanks for the Info

Greetings from Germany NRW
Ulli


ID: 743650 · Report as offensive
John McCallum
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 5 Dec 04
Posts: 877
Credit: 599,458
RAC: 8
United Kingdom
Message 743664 - Posted: 24 Apr 2008, 20:07:05 UTC

Three steps forward one sideways then one back (keep awake in the back)
Old enough to know better(but)still young enough not to care
ID: 743664 · Report as offensive
Profile Dr. C.E.T.I.
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 29 Feb 00
Posts: 16019
Credit: 794,685
RAC: 0
United States
Message 743666 - Posted: 24 Apr 2008, 20:16:15 UTC - in response to Message 743622.  


Thank You for the Post News Matt - iT is Sincerely Appreciated Sir

Just to show some non-zero amount of progress on the Near Time Persistency Checker (a.k.a. the NTPCkr, pronounced "nitpicker"), I added some new fields to the science status page showing previous signals found where the telescope is currently pointing:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sci_status.html

This isn't all that scientifically useful, but it is kind of interesting, and shows the basic guts of the NTPCkr are working - i.e. given a single "pixel" on the sky, show some basic up-to-the-minute stats about what we've seen there so far.

Please note that:

1. We divide the sky up into millions of such "pixels," and each contains anywhere from 0 to roughly 100000 signals of varying type. Don't get excited or depressed about any of these number you see.

2. If you watch the page, you'll note that "multiplets" (groups of similar signals of similar frequency seen over multiple observations) are rather common. So don't get too excited about those, either. This is all BEFORE we remove RFI and other garbage from the database.

3. I still haven't yet fixed known precession errors (which I mentioned before in recent tech news items) so the coordinates are slightly off, anyway, but nevertheless this gives you a rough idea of what we got.

The current NTPCkr work is focused on getting this running in near-real-time. This is the whole point of this extended project, as opposed to doing yet another one-fell-swoop kind of analysis which is painful and requires a month of focused manpower to do, which is why such things happen every few years. The grand hope of the NTPCkr is to be giving us good results every day.

More news as we progress, I guess...

- Matt


BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .
ID: 743666 · Report as offensive
Profile Mr. Kevvy Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $250 donor
Volunteer moderator
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 15 May 99
Posts: 3776
Credit: 1,114,826,392
RAC: 3,319
Canada
Message 744061 - Posted: 25 Apr 2008, 17:06:55 UTC - in response to Message 743622.  
Last modified: 25 Apr 2008, 17:11:09 UTC

2. If you watch the page, you'll note that "multiplets" (groups of similar signals of similar frequency seen over multiple observations) are rather common. So don't get too excited about those, either. This is all BEFORE we remove RFI and other garbage from the database.


Hard not to get excited when there are so many of them. :^) I've peeked at the page a few times, and just on the last peek, was showing 27 multiplet Gaussians where it happened to be looking.

If anything, considering how tiny of a patch of sky that is, it illustrates how vast is the amount of data this project has accumulated and processed. Should provide years of possibilities for findings. Thanks for the always appreciated updates.
ID: 744061 · Report as offensive
Taurus

Send message
Joined: 3 Sep 07
Posts: 324
Credit: 114,815
RAC: 0
United States
Message 744332 - Posted: 26 Apr 2008, 2:37:29 UTC

Thanks for sharing your progress with us! The results look promising!
ID: 744332 · Report as offensive
Profile Dr. C.E.T.I.
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 29 Feb 00
Posts: 16019
Credit: 794,685
RAC: 0
United States
Message 744445 - Posted: 26 Apr 2008, 12:37:35 UTC


@ Matt - You should make this Thread a Sticky - Yes?


BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .
ID: 744445 · Report as offensive
Profile Matt Lebofsky
Volunteer moderator
Project administrator
Project developer
Project scientist
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 1 Mar 99
Posts: 1444
Credit: 957,058
RAC: 0
United States
Message 745450 - Posted: 28 Apr 2008, 16:05:58 UTC

I just made this thread sticky, because, as suggested, this should be of high general interest.

- Matt

-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude
ID: 745450 · Report as offensive
PhonAcq

Send message
Joined: 14 Apr 01
Posts: 1656
Credit: 30,658,217
RAC: 1
United States
Message 745468 - Posted: 28 Apr 2008, 17:57:21 UTC

the table needs more explanation for us neophytes. for example, how can arecibo be currently pointing anywhere; by the time one reads the table the earth has moved. two bits.
ID: 745468 · Report as offensive
Profile Matt Lebofsky
Volunteer moderator
Project administrator
Project developer
Project scientist
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 1 Mar 99
Posts: 1444
Credit: 957,058
RAC: 0
United States
Message 745506 - Posted: 28 Apr 2008, 20:02:16 UTC - in response to Message 745468.  

the table needs more explanation for us neophytes. for example, how can arecibo be currently pointing anywhere; by the time one reads the table the earth has moved. two bits.


I think I cleared up that text: the coordinates are changing all the time as you point out, but these readings are taken every ten minutes for our display purposes.

And yes, there will be more useful descriptions at some point, especially as we get more interesting stats up on the site.

- Matt

-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude
ID: 745506 · Report as offensive
PhonAcq

Send message
Joined: 14 Apr 01
Posts: 1656
Credit: 30,658,217
RAC: 1
United States
Message 745554 - Posted: 28 Apr 2008, 21:03:11 UTC

Ok. Would it be useful to tell us how many wu's have been analyzed in the current position, so we can usefully normalize the numbers?
ID: 745554 · Report as offensive
Kathy
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 5 Jan 03
Posts: 338
Credit: 27,877,436
RAC: 0
United States
Message 752676 - Posted: 13 May 2008, 22:57:17 UTC - in response to Message 745506.  

the table needs more explanation for us neophytes. for example, how can arecibo be currently pointing anywhere; by the time one reads the table the earth has moved. two bits.


I think I cleared up that text: the coordinates are changing all the time as you point out, but these readings are taken every ten minutes for our display purposes.

And yes, there will be more useful descriptions at some point, especially as we get more interesting stats up on the site.

- Matt


Thanks so much Matt, your news has been long awaited. Good on you!
ID: 752676 · Report as offensive
Profile Fred J. Verster
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 21 Apr 04
Posts: 3252
Credit: 31,903,643
RAC: 0
Netherlands
Message 757741 - Posted: 24 May 2008, 11:08:58 UTC - in response to Message 752676.  

the table needs more explanation for us neophytes. for example, how can arecibo be currently pointing anywhere; by the time one reads the table the earth has moved. two bits.


I think I cleared up that text: the coordinates are changing all the time as you point out, but these readings are taken every ten minutes for our display purposes.

And yes, there will be more useful descriptions at some point, especially as we get more interesting stats up on the site.

- Matt


Thanks so much Matt, your news has been long awaited. Good on you!


Hi Matt, i'am glad with your explanation, doesn't these signals, due to the earth's rotation, gives all kinds off 'DOPPLER Effects'. Or are those movements to complex to 'call' them so?

ID: 757741 · Report as offensive
Profile Matt Lebofsky
Volunteer moderator
Project administrator
Project developer
Project scientist
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 1 Mar 99
Posts: 1444
Credit: 957,058
RAC: 0
United States
Message 759460 - Posted: 27 May 2008, 20:31:23 UTC - in response to Message 757741.  

Of course. That's why SETI@home requires as much computation as it does - we're scanning the same frequency/time space over and over again assuming a kajillion different doppler shifts. We don't know where the signal is coming from, at what angle, and when, so we need to compensate for that.

- Matt

Hi Matt, i'am glad with your explanation, doesn't these signals, due to the earth's rotation, gives all kinds off 'DOPPLER Effects'. Or are those movements to complex to 'call' them so?


-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude
ID: 759460 · Report as offensive
Lalinka

Send message
Joined: 8 Nov 06
Posts: 1
Credit: 4,048
RAC: 0
Czech Republic
Message 760505 - Posted: 30 May 2008, 6:01:50 UTC

I have it!!! I have signals!!! Lalinka
ID: 760505 · Report as offensive
Profile Knightmare
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 16 Aug 04
Posts: 7472
Credit: 94,252
RAC: 0
United States
Message 774602 - Posted: 28 Jun 2008, 5:36:43 UTC

Matt...I have been one of the more vocal among the users about the lack of any analysis being done. I am now more proud than ever to say that I am a member of the community crunching Seti@home.

Thank you for getting NTPCkr ( or at least the beginnings of it ) going.
Air Cold, the blade stops;
from silent stone,
Death is preordained


Calm Chaos Forums : Everyone Welcome
ID: 774602 · Report as offensive
Profile Misfit
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 21 Jun 01
Posts: 21804
Credit: 2,815,091
RAC: 0
United States
Message 823416 - Posted: 26 Oct 2008, 6:06:36 UTC

Meanwhile 120 days later...?
me@rescam.org
ID: 823416 · Report as offensive
PhonAcq

Send message
Joined: 14 Apr 01
Posts: 1656
Credit: 30,658,217
RAC: 1
United States
Message 823822 - Posted: 27 Oct 2008, 11:39:41 UTC - in response to Message 823416.  

Meanwhile 120 days later...?


Glacial progress it appears! Rip Von Winkle has nothing on this project.
ID: 823822 · Report as offensive
Rapture
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 22 Nov 08
Posts: 2
Credit: 1,641
RAC: 0
United States
Message 835972 - Posted: 1 Dec 2008, 1:48:55 UTC - in response to Message 743622.  

What is the current status?

Can you provide any timeframe when this might be completed?

It looks like this will not be done until sometime next year.
ID: 835972 · Report as offensive
Profile Misfit
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 21 Jun 01
Posts: 21804
Credit: 2,815,091
RAC: 0
United States
Message 839831 - Posted: 14 Dec 2008, 5:58:10 UTC



And I remember a time when Matt said there was a danger of running out of work. Why work on the analysis of the data when they can spend their time with a new CUDA project that will crunch data 3X faster - data that still won't be analyzed.
me@rescam.org
ID: 839831 · Report as offensive
1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · Next

Message boards : SETI@home Science : First Signs of the NTPCkr


 
©2024 University of California
 
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.