Read about Nebula, a new and faster back end for SETI@home. Nebula removes RFI and finds persistent signals. Its goal is to let us finish the current SETI@home experiment.

Hi All,

I am a bit confused by a couple of things after reading the Nebula article:

1) Does seti@home client computers feed the Nebula back end? There are hints that it will but does not explicitly call it out that as the section of Flattening the table hierarchy there is a step on unloading the tape so would like a clarification on why use the tape again as the data on the tape has already been sent to seti@home clients.

2) If David is not working on the seti@home client because of funding issues. Who will continue to work the seti@home changes that were outlined in the article. Volunteers?

Thanks for listening.

BoincSpy still alive.

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I will admit that I did not read all the materials pointed to in the various places.

That said, I find myself troubled by the statement: "Its goal is to let us finish the current SETI@home experiment".

This sounds like the end of SETI@home.

I'm a bit tired and low on my glucose levels and I hope I'm not jumping to conclusions so please tell me that I'm off in the weeds.

John

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"Publishing this paper won't mark the end of SETI@home. It may continue indefinitely. However, it will probably undergo a major transformation soon - new telescopes, new frequency bands, new front-end algorithms - that will effectively start a new experiment. We need to finish the original experiment."

Well, no matter what happens to SETI@home, I'm glad all the results will now undergo some kind of comprehensive analysis.

I will admit that I did not read all the materials pointed to in the various places.

That said, I find myself troubled by the statement: "Its goal is to let us finish the current SETI@home experiment".

This sounds like the end of SETI@home.

I'm a bit tired and low on my glucose levels and I hope I'm not jumping to conclusions so please tell me that I'm off in the weeds.

John

Publishing this paper won't mark the end of SETI@home. It may continue indefinitely. However, it will probably undergo a major transformation soon - new telescopes, new frequency bands, new front-end algorithms - that will effectively start a new experiment. We need to finish the original experiment.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/nebula_web/goals.php

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I will admit that I did not read all the materials pointed to in the various places.

That said, I find myself troubled by the statement: "Its goal is to let us finish the current SETI@home experiment".

This sounds like the end of SETI@home.

I'm a bit tired and low on my glucose levels and I hope I'm not jumping to conclusions so please tell me that I'm off in the weeds.

John

Unfortunately, I think you read it right John.

But as stated, all experiments have to end at some point and results published.

But I think this opens a way for a new Seti@home (with funding probably from Breakthrough Listen for paid employees) to take over the daily requirements of keeping it going. It would allow the current scientists to move onto newer projects and bring in younger ones to continue their work (ie cut their teeth on a stable platform)

What will the future look like, who can tell.

Zalster

As an old Einstein@home aficionado, I am glad of this cooperation between SETI@home and the Albert Einstein Institut of the Max Planck Gesellshaft. I have seen some of my Einstein results validated against results from Atlas members.
Tullio

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I am not disheartened at all, nor should you be.

As long as there's data I can crunch, I will keep heart.
At the point where downloads cease, I'd be po'd and trying to decide what to do with 5 crunchers containing 15 $$$ GPUs that I'll have no further use for ...
I didn't read a vision for how S@H folks and their capabilities fit into the future scheme, in this dissertation, and that's disappointing.

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My inital interpretation is that the current SETI Experiment is involving the Aricebo dataset to draw the conclusion from.

Although I would like to hear about how SETI@Home will transition.

Will we crunch Breakthough with V8 while they code S@H3?
Will They Shutdown for a few months to transistion the software?

I'd expect to hear more details next year.

Publishing this paper won't mark the end of SETI@home. It may continue indefinitely. However, it will probably undergo a major transformation soon - new telescopes, new frequency bands, new front-end algorithms - that will effectively start a new experiment. We need to finish the original experiment.

And we are ready to crunch on this new!! :-)

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It was very exciting for me to read the Nebula article from David P. Anderson. Thanks for this great report!

So far as I understood it's time to bring up the back-end processing (which was never done by the seti@home clients) to a new level (faster processing speed, higher accuracy, extended possibilities to detect ET-Signals and more). The SETI@home front-end processing done by our seti@home clients will may be changed in future but it will continue to be necessary (please reply if I'm wrong).

I'm very glad about this upcoming step (evolution) because stagnation is regression.

I am grateful to participate in this exciting project.
 

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SETIspirit Homepage

I had read approximately one-third of the way through the article when I came across the assertion that GPS satellites are geostationary (in the section describing RFI sources). This is incorrect. Communication satellites are (in general) geostationary, while GPS satellites have an orbital period of ~12hrs.

With regard to those dismayed crunchers who are concerned about an impending end to the project, I believe David Anderson addressed this by stating in the article that this is the end of the original experiment, but that further (and expanded) data acquisition and analysis is almost a certainty.

That's right, David!
It is time to end the wandering in the "mist" and draw conclusions, we find them or not!
But in any case they have and perhaps much closer than we think and where looking.
If we come to them with the phrase "hello humanoids!", I am sure one day they declared to us with the idea, "Well that was not expected?" )))

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Горы, нет ничего лучше гор. :)
Mountains, there is nothing better than mountains. :)
Life is good when you live without haste! ))

WOW! Real Science in action, and a very good move and fantastic new development.


Shame that developments like this are pushed after the all too usual crisis of no funding for science and where the science is left to external random goodwill and the randomness of having to go begging.

Great shame for the circumstances.

Excellent very logical and opportune development to make s@h a big success.


Oh, and Trump owes Germany a BIG favour for keeping USA cutting edge astronomy exploration alive.

Congratulations all round :-)

Keep searchin!!!!
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Thanks for the readable, detailed and thorough article on your well thought-out plan for updating and hopefully completing the SETI@home project David. Keep up the good work.

OK, i've read the whole "nebula" link and to me it seems that nebula will finally conclude and finnish S@H. Which is past due....

Given the fact, that Seti@Home never analysed the data send back from it's clients, it's about time we arrive at a conclusion.

Special thanks goes out to Bruce Allen, who i've personally had the honor to meet at an einstein@home event back in 2006.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/20418602@N00/sets/72157594427277300/detail/

He's a great guy and without a doubt, one of the most interactive boinc project admins i had the pleasure to meet in person or work with/talk to.

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Join BOINC United now!

As one who has spent a great deal of time and money on the current version of Seti, I await the results of the 'final processing' of the data we have all worked so long and hard to accumulate.

Furthermore, the kitties are optimistic and excited about the next phase of Seti research.

And you should know this..........
I feel I should make this statement as one who has done so much toward an apparently dead end.

I personally would like to thank Eric, Jeff, Matt and Dr. Anderson for all of THEIR time and effort spent in support of what we crunchers have been able to do. Without their endless efforts for so many years, this would not have been possible.

I am not nor shall be disappointed if our years of current work turns up nothing.
That is part of the scientific process. And truth be told, most of us expected to find nothing, even though we believe there IS life beyond our solar system.

Rest assured, if possible, the kitties shall be involved in the next generation of this most important scientific project. And I hope that my fellow Setizens, and the generations of Setizens to follow in our footsteps shall continue this search when I have left this planet in earthly form to continue the search as a soul unfettered by the boundaries that bind a living human being. I shall then be able to travel personally to other worlds and see for myself what might be there. And that to me, is a most exciting possibility.

Meow!

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Thanks for detailed description.

So far one place rises questions:

Autocorrelation: a repeating pattern of unknown shape and period, manifested by a correlation between the data and a shifted copy of itself. Autocorrelation uses the time-domain data; FFT is not used.

In fact autocorr applied after dechirping on 128k FFT only (so both back and forth transforms are done before autocorr starts)
So what "FFT not used could mean"?

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SETI apps news
We're not gonna fight them. We're gonna transcend them.

From this page:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/nebula_web/persistent.php

"We use a resolution at which each pixel is about as large as a telescope beam.
This resolution divides the sphere into 2^26 (about 54 million) pixels, of which about 16 million are visible from the Arecibo telescope."

From code:
https://setisvn.ssl.berkeley.edu/trac/browser/seti_science/nebula/tables.h

// largest possible pixel#
//
#define MAX_PIXEL (2<<26)


I think 2<<26 == 2^27

e.g. 2<<1 == 4 == 2^2

http://www.c4learn.com/c-programming/c-bitwise-left-shift-operator/


Note: In the above I used "^" to denote "power", not XOR
 

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- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

From this page:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/nebula_web/persistent.php

"We use a resolution at which each pixel is about as large as a telescope beam.
This resolution divides the sphere into 2^26 (about 54 million) pixels, of which about 16 million are visible from the Arecibo telescope."

From code:
https://setisvn.ssl.berkeley.edu/trac/browser/seti_science/nebula/tables.h

// largest possible pixel#
//
#define MAX_PIXEL (2<<26)


I think 2<<26 == 2^27

e.g. 2<<1 == 4 == 2^2

http://www.c4learn.com/c-programming/c-bitwise-left-shift-operator/


Note: In the above I used "^" to denote "power", not XOR
 

Hee hee, good catch...

Should not that "#define MAX_PIXEL (2<<26)" actually be:

#define MAX_PIXEL (1<<26)

?

That is, "1" left-shifted 26 places to give 2^26 ?


FLOSS in action :-)

Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)