Wait a second... How is Allen Telescope Array data crunched??...

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Taurus

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Message 736900 - Posted: 10 Apr 2008, 15:18:56 UTC
Last modified: 10 Apr 2008, 15:38:55 UTC

My understanding is that the Allen Telescope Array will be/is able to collect vastly more data than the narrow scope SETI@Home is currently sifting through from the Aricebo facility.

If that's the case, then how is ATA's data being crunched??.....

My understanding is that the distributed computing power of SETI@Home is equivalent to a fairly powerful super computer. Does that mean that SETI@Home has greater crunching ability than whatever computers the SETI Institute is using to crunch ATA data? ...and if that's the case, why isn't a similar distributed computing project being done for ATA data since ATA data should have vastly more potential?

I realize that SETI@Home does *not* equal the SETI Institute; I'm merely wondering how ATA data is being crunched in case anyone knows?...

Perhaps the SETI Institute got a multi-million dollar super computer along with the rest of their Paul Allen grant in order to crunch data from the ATA?
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Profile Fred J. Verster
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Message 736912 - Posted: 10 Apr 2008, 16:02:45 UTC - in response to Message 736900.  

My understanding is that the Allen Telescope Array will be/is able to collect vastly more data than the narrow scope SETI@Home is currently sifting through from the Aricebo facility.

If that's the case, then how is ATA's data being crunched??.....

My understanding is that the distributed computing power of SETI@Home is equivalent to a fairly powerful super computer. Does that mean that SETI@Home has greater crunching ability than whatever computers the SETI Institute is using to crunch ATA data? ...and if that's the case, why isn't a similar distributed computing project being done for ATA data since ATA data should have vastly more potential?

I realize that SETI@Home does *not* equal the SETI Institute; I'm merely wondering how ATA data is being crunched in case anyone knows?...

Perhaps the SETI Institute got a multi-million dollar super computer along with the rest of their Paul Allen grant in order to crunch data from the ATA?


A 'SUPER COMPUTER' with the equivalent off 1 PetaFLOP/sec, doesn't excist yet!
That's why they use the so called GRID COMPUTING or distributed computing.
(Isn't 1 petaFLOP 10^15= 1000 TeraFlops, or a million GigaFLOPs?)

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Message 736925 - Posted: 10 Apr 2008, 16:34:57 UTC

I don't think that a fianl decision has been made on how the data will be cruched. "a new software-based processing system named SonATA (SETI on the ATA). SonATA will have more channels and capabilities than any other SETI system but will require additional funding." Here is the link to the ATA Overview I know that it has been said that S@H will not be getting data from the ATA, but that is at the present time. Things change. Also the S@H system is a general overview of the sky. In otherwords, S@H only gets data from where ever Arecibo is pointing. S@H has no control of where it's looking. The ATA will have the ability to look at any part of the sky that looks promissing. I am sure that they will look at locations that S@H has already found interesting.
The sort answer to your questions "How is ATA data cruched?" is has yet to be decided.

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Message 736927 - Posted: 10 Apr 2008, 16:45:19 UTC - in response to Message 736925.  


The sort answer to your questions "How is ATA data cruched?" is has yet to be decided.


But isn't ATA already collecting data?
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Message 737043 - Posted: 10 Apr 2008, 20:42:17 UTC - in response to Message 736927.  


The sort answer to your questions "How is ATA data cruched?" is has yet to be decided.


But isn't ATA already collecting data?


Oct. 11, 2007 – Today, the University of California, Berkeley and the SETI Institute announced that the first 42 radio dishes of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) are activated and collecting scientific data. Here is the full press release. They are but not yet fully operational. They expect "The full 350-dish array" to be "completed in approximately three years..." I understand that at the moment they still testing a fine tunning thinks.

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Message 737061 - Posted: 10 Apr 2008, 21:25:06 UTC

While they are deciding how to crunch the data, someone please call their red phone from our red phone and have them send all of us here at S@H a batch or two to knock out. We have a red phone right?
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Message 737230 - Posted: 11 Apr 2008, 4:27:40 UTC - in response to Message 737061.  

We have a red phone right?


Actually, it's more pink than red, but it has really cool buttons and lights on it.
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Message 737327 - Posted: 11 Apr 2008, 12:01:25 UTC - in response to Message 737230.  

We have a red phone right?


Actually, it's more pink than red, but it has really cool buttons and lights on it.


A Hello Kitty theme??? ;)
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Message 737336 - Posted: 11 Apr 2008, 13:22:18 UTC - in response to Message 737332.  

"The raw computational power of Xilinx FPGAs in ganged arrays drives the international search for extraterrestrial intelligence at 10^15 ops per second."

Xilinx

That article (it's 4 years old, BTW) seems to be describing the raw signal processing that takes place at the telescope before data is recorded: it seems we've been using those chips for years at Arecibo.

But what we're doing now (and have been doing all along) is post-processing the output from the DSP chips.

So Taurus' original question remains: who is going to post-process the recorded output from the Allen Array?
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Message 737383 - Posted: 11 Apr 2008, 17:40:10 UTC

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Message 737394 - Posted: 11 Apr 2008, 18:41:24 UTC

I don't have that much faith in the Allen Array. Even when it's completely finished it will have only 1/7 the collecting area of Arecibo, and possibly 1/4 the collecting area of what we're using at Arecibo. However there's one thing that might be true: Since the individual dishes will be spread out, the Allen will be an interferometer which will have greater resolution than the Arecibo apparatus. It's possible that this principle could mean that the Allen would be more sensitive over a very small area (for example 30 arcseconds diameter) than Arecibo is over its three arcminute area. With a star the smaller area would cover its planets as well as the larger area. But random sky coverage would be much slower with the Allen. I don't know if they could apply the multibeam principle to the Allen or not.
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Message 738461 - Posted: 13 Apr 2008, 18:00:45 UTC - in response to Message 737394.  
Last modified: 13 Apr 2008, 18:13:01 UTC

I don't have that much faith in the Allen Array. Even when it's completely finished it will have only 1/7 the collecting area of Arecibo, and possibly 1/4 the collecting area of what we're using at Arecibo. However there's one thing that might be true: Since the individual dishes will be spread out, the Allen will be an interferometer which will have greater resolution than the Arecibo apparatus. It's possible that this principle could mean that the Allen would be more sensitive over a very small area (for example 30 arcseconds diameter) than Arecibo is over its three arcminute area. With a star the smaller area would cover its planets as well as the larger area. But random sky coverage would be much slower with the Allen. I don't know if they could apply the multibeam principle to the Allen or not.



Are you sure about that?
Why do I keep reading press releases and hearing SETI scientists claim that the completed ATA will be able to scan more stars than every other SETI project ever done combined? As far as multibeam, I've heard Jill Tarter say the ATA will use "three different beams simultaneously", whatever that means...

What about this?
The instantaneous area of sky imaged [by the ATA] is 17 times that of the Very Large Array (VLA).


The wide field of view of the ATA gives it an unparalleled capability for large surveys (Fig. 4). The time required for mapping a large area to a given sensitivity is proportional to (ND)², where N is the number of elements and D is the diameter of the dish. This leads to the surprising result that a large array of small dishes can outperform an array with smaller number of elements but considerably greater collecting area at the task of large surveys. As a consequence, even the ATA-42 is competitive with much larger telescopes in its capability for both brightness temperature and point-source surveys. For point source surveys, the ATA-42 is comparable in speed with Arecibo and the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), but slower by a factor of 3 than the Very Large Array (VLA). The ATA-350, on the other hand, will be an order of magnitude faster than the Very Large Array for point-source surveys and is comparable to the Expanded VLA (EVLA) in survey speed. For surveys to a specified brightness temperature sensitivity, the ATA-98 will exceed the survey speed of even the VLA-D configuration. The ATA-206 should match the brightness temperature sensitivity of Arecibo and the GBT. The ATA, however, provides better resolution than either these single dish telescopes.
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Message 738791 - Posted: 14 Apr 2008, 3:05:14 UTC - in response to Message 738461.  

Are you sure about that?
Why do I keep reading press releases and hearing SETI scientists claim that the completed ATA will be able to scan more stars than every other SETI project ever done combined? As far as multibeam, I've heard Jill Tarter say the ATA will use "three different beams simultaneously", whatever that means...

SETI@home is just one small part of the SETI efforts. Most SETI surveys look for relatively strong signals, this is the type of survey they are expecting to use the ATA for. I do not know if the data collected there will be compatible with SETI@home. Since Arecibo is a single dish it can receive fainter signals. To illustrate; if you have a bunch of sails spread over a large area you have a better chance of catching some wind however a single sail will be able to convert more wind energy into motion in the right conditions.

Since the ATA is composed of a bunch of small dishes it could theoretically point each one differently and have as many "beams" as there are dishes. However each "split" reduces sensitivity so three is probably the limit where loss of sensitivity balances the increase in "beam width".
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Message 739137 - Posted: 14 Apr 2008, 22:55:22 UTC

The Allen SETI Array has zero connection to SETI At Home.

None of the data will be crunched/processed by/thru SETI@Home.

None, nada, zip.
It's not too many computers, it's a lack of circuit breakers for this room. But we can fix it :)
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Message 739211 - Posted: 15 Apr 2008, 1:32:02 UTC - in response to Message 739137.  
Last modified: 15 Apr 2008, 1:38:07 UTC

The Allen SETI Array has zero connection to SETI At Home.

None of the data will be crunched/processed by/thru SETI@Home.

None, nada, zip.


SETI@home is just one small part of the SETI efforts. Most SETI surveys look for relatively strong signals, this is the type of survey they are expecting to use the ATA for. I do not know if the data collected there will be compatible with SETI@home.



Yep, I'm aware of that.

From the first post;
I realize that SETI@Home does *not* equal the SETI Institute; I'm merely wondering how ATA data is being crunched in case anyone knows?...


I'm not really asking if ATA data is compatible with SETI@Home; I'm asking if anyone knows *how* ATA data is being crunched? Since the ATA will apparently be capable of collecting more data than is processed by SETI@Home, and since SETI@Home is the equivalent of a powerful supercomputer, wouldn't a distributed computing solution be a viable choice for ATA and if not, then does anyone know if the SETI Institute has some kind of multi-million dollar supercomputer to process that data?

Again, I am aware that SETI@Home is operated by a separate organization than the SETI Institute; I am merely asking why the SETI Institute has not opted for a distributed computing solution and whether or not anyone knows how they are processing ATA data.
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Message 739218 - Posted: 15 Apr 2008, 2:00:01 UTC

I remember seeing something on the Discovery channel or some similar channel that indicated the search would be analyzed in real time.

I found this article indicates the same thing, sort of.
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Message 740466 - Posted: 17 Apr 2008, 16:31:44 UTC - in response to Message 739218.  

Awesome! TY!
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Message boards : Number crunching : Wait a second... How is Allen Telescope Array data crunched??...


 
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