Question about waterfall plots.

It is not easy to understand the intentions of the SETI Institute. AFAIK SETILive should be used to filter the data received by the ATA for radio interference and pass only possible ET signals to Open SonATA, which needs VMware to be used. But all this is just my opinion.
Tullio
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I help out at SETI Live. I'm told that the hope is that the human eye and brain can detect signals that the computers may miss. If several people see the same signal, represented by a straight line in the waterfall displays, and it seems to have the characteristics expected of a SETI signal, they will aim the ATA back to that spot in the sky and see if they can acquire a signal. They search selectively, using a list of target stars either believed or confirmed to have planets. They use the lists of stars with planets from the Kepler Space Telescope, and other exo-planet search projects.

I wouldn't recognize an intelligent signal unless "Hi Bob" came out of my speakers. I have been allowing Seti@home to use my computer almost 24/7 for over twelve years now. Sometimes I watch the screen saver animation but most times I don't. I hope that my participation has helped in the search for intelligent signals but I'm not really interested in trying to interpret the data myself.
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Bob DeWoody

Last time I visited www.setilive.org there were more than 76k registered users but only 3 were classifying. You need time and patience to do this king of searching. Given the inefficiency of digital computers in pattern recognition (this is what is being done) I would use a neural network, which can learn from experience.
Tullio
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Three were classifying when I checked a minute ago. The ATA is inactive at the moment. A few people are classifying archival data, which is reported to be useful for statistical purposes, and improving the algorithms. The numbers are typically higher when the ATA is providing live data. People are intrigued with the possibility of being in on the discovery of a real SETI signal, as it happens. Improbable? Yes. But such odds have kept some gold prospectors on the search for years. Sometimes it pays off, and in a big way.

I do not want to criticize the SETI Institute. But I think we are doing more at SETI@home and other BOINC projects. Also LHC is not running now and so are the Gravitational Wave interferometers, but we are still crunching data.
Tullio
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