Someone talk me down off the ledge Anything goes · Timothy Martin · ... · 48 · 1847 · 1

Continuum - Laurent Lucas:

Alan Brunelle:

Continuum - Laurent Lucas:

Alan Brunelle:
I left Pickleball off of my list and don't think you are crazy.

I agree with many of the posters above, especially regarding this hobby as a personal venture for exploration.  At least that is the case for me.  I generally want to use my own gear, but lately, because of a move, I have been forced to try some different optics from commercial sites.  Mostly looking at an optic that I find intreguing for reasons that are specific to my own exploration. 

Aside from that, I think all the posters above also missed one of the most important issues with the Rubin, and that is all the data will be available to the general public, essentially nearly immediately!  This may be a huge free resource for those astrophotographers for who these fields and resolutions may fit their needs.  The other thing is that, unlike the Hubble, these fields will be repeatedly imaged thereby yielding data sets that offer stacking, noise reduction, etc. that just does not happen with single images from the other space-based scopes.  So whether we like it or not, Rubin will revolutionize astrophotography, at least some part of it.  The question then is what does one do with this data, that may not fit our desired resolution, exposures, filters, etc.  I for one am interested in generating optical maps of distant fields of galaxies, without the intereference of local (i.e. Milky Way) stars and other local interferences.  Not just maps of dots that the current science provides to illustrate the galactic web, but those dots being actual real images of those galaxies.  That is just one thing that could come of the Rubin data.  Never mind the lock on new discoveries such as NEO, new solar system planets, all asteroids of significant size, all SNE, comets, picking up extrasolar objects transiting our solar system in time to explore, unlike that last couple only discovered much too late to react, dark matter evidence, etc., etc.  So much data to review, it will force science to create new data analysing paradyms just to not waste the data.  The demands cause by the huge data push will not just revolutionize what is generated by Rubin, but also likely to spill over into many areas of our information society.  I am not sure I am ready for that at my age...  But my kids will have to be!

Best,
Alan

Could you share the information about the data being publicly released almost immediately? Best I've found is 2 years down the road, if financing is successful.

A week ago, or so, I looked up on the web site for this info and you are correct, the data will be held for two years, open to those who register as PI's or Associates.  Thereafter open.  However, I also read somewhere that it may be possible to register as a citizen scientist (assume from affiliated country to the project), and for imaging purposes, may be welcome to work with data prior to that.  I went to the site for registering as an official user and it was not yet open for use.  I did not save the link, so you will have to search for that yourself.  Given the excessive data generated and the dearth of actual researchers, I suspect the pressure for uses of this data outside of direct science missions will allow for a consortium of artists to open the data to our use.  That is the understanding that I had when researching this.  But I did not save those sites.

Thank you, that is interesting.

The issue might be in the database maintenance and storage of this wealth of data; in this regard for example, the hubble heritage portal is kind of a mess, and although the data is often great, it's kind of wasted now in the wake of modern web standards; in terms it'll catch dust like the old photographic plates.

Your point is well taken.  After hearing some of the presentations for the opening of Rubin, I immediately thought about how much data will be wasted to time for lack of someone to review it.  Not everything, but a lot of it.  I trust that the computers will tease out every asteroid and generate every orbit, etc. etc.  Which is fine, but a lot of transients will be lost to time.  That said, I guess all these are currently being lost anyway, so...

Alan Brunelle:

=14pxYour point is well taken.  After hearing some of the presentations for the opening of Rubin, I immediately thought about how much data will be wasted to time for lack of someone to review it.  Not everything, but a lot of it.  I trust that the computers will tease out every asteroid and generate every orbit, etc. etc.  Which is fine, but a lot of transients will be lost to time.  That said, I guess all these are currently being lost anyway, so...

Ahah yes, all in all it'll be a net benefit. Not sure about the exploitabilty of said data for most of us here, especially in the "stacking several frames to improve SNR" deep sky approach. I'd bet it'll be amazing for everything transient though. That's great, considering that it is what it was built for. 

I feel the demo images released are not representative of what'll come after, in the prettyness departement, mostly by lack of funding, besides the main missions. But it would be fantastic to be proven wrong, and for it to push the bar far higher for amateur astrophotography.

Oscar:
so that's 12 and a half subs from my 2600mm

Um, no. That amount of memory would store slightly more than 1% of one sub from the 2600. That sub is 52MB, which is 53,248K. When Bill Gates made that statement, the largest hard drive for a PC I had ever seen was 5MB, which would still be 47MB short of being able to store that sub.

In the 80s, people really had no idea where computing was headed (just as I now have no idea where VRO and astrophotography in general are headed). I was working as a programmer for a desktop publishing software company at the time and we had a meeting with IBM engineers regarding a new laser printer they were designing. I was concerned about its support for multiple fonts. One of the engineers asked me, "Why would anyone want to use more than two fonts?"

Alan Brunelle:
But give a number of users here on AstroBin access and I am sure someone will figure out a way to use the data!

I'd use it as reference for gradient correction for my B5 data with the MGC process on PixInsight. 

As I saw someone commenting it somewhere here, maybe the PixInsight team could use it as a database for their south sky mapping for gradients. They could cover the entire sky in a few months worth of LSST data. That would be so cool. They rely on a few users that shoot from B4 or less and that are happy to share their data for this project... In other words, this will take ages to complete. LSST would do it thousands of times faster.

I would also be interested in processing it during the cloudy nights... Hubble and JWT are difficult to find broadband data for processing, as I'm not a huge fan of narrowband or other wavelengths.

Timothy Martin:

Oscar:
so that's 12 and a half subs from my 2600mm

Um, no. That amount of memory would store slightly more than 1% of one sub from the 2600. That sub is 52MB, which is 53,248K. When Bill Gates made that statement, the largest hard drive for a PC I had ever seen was 5MB, which would still be 47MB short of being able to store that sub.

In the 80s, people really had no idea where computing was headed (just as I now have no idea where VRO and astrophotography in general are headed). I was working as a programmer for a desktop publishing software company at the time and we had a meeting with IBM engineers regarding a new laser printer they were designing. I was concerned about its support for multiple fonts. One of the engineers asked me, "Why would anyone want to use more than two fonts?"

Brain fart. I confused the comma, in the file description details, for a decimal point; I thought it said "50.971KB". Thx for the correction.

I think your in the hobby for the wrong reasons.

Andrew:
I think your in the hobby for the wrong reasons.

I think you're taking this too seriously. It was intended to be very tongue in cheek and maybe engender a discussion about the VRO, which is an astounding development in this field.

Timothy Martin:

Andrew:
I think your in the hobby for the wrong reasons.

I think you're taking this too seriously. It was intended to be very tongue in cheek and maybe engender a discussion about the VRO, which is an astounding development in this field.

After I responded to Tim, I realized his OP was probably tongue & cheek humor.    Sort of the way I feel now that AI is gobbling up all of the music written over the past 400 years to give it enough "data" to compose music. Kind of a joke really because AI will never feel anything, never hunger for anything, never long for anything, never have ideals and values about anything, so how in the hell will it do art?   The best it will do is create fantastic imitations of art and probably most people will never know the difference.  And besides, AI won't eliminate NS  (natural stupidity). 

Of course, maybe I am completely wrong and the integration of AI, robotics and quantum computing will become conscious, it will intuitively recognize truth, beauty and goodness, it will develop self-awareness and basically put the entire human species out of business.   I suppose anything's possible...But I still find pleasure in  a tuna sandwich and dark chocolate!

Timothy Martin:
Did the Vera Rubin Observatory just put us all out of business? 10 meter focal length at F1.2 with a 3200 megapixel camera and a 3.5-degree field of view--and it will shoot the entire southern hemisphere every few days. It pretty much kills every scope I have in just about every way. I'm not sure why we should even do this any more. Please tell me why I'm overreacting

In my opinion, you have to ask yourself: Why am i doing this?
Did what i'm doing become obsolete, because of this Observatory? And was my hobby also affected by JWST and others, and if not, where is the difference?

For me, the answer is: We're producing pretty pictures. At least most of us. We properly calibrate our subs, register and stack them, but after that we're usually going nonlinear.
Most of us even use databases to color calibrate the images, or KI tools to alter the content (denoise, star removal et cetera). There isnt much of an scientific attitude behind it. 

Some people here are from the scientific community, or taking it really seriously. Finding new objects and stuff. After that, they publish pretty pictures of it. For those, this telescope isnt good news.

I'm not gonna give a fiddler's of what VR is doing (and very much doubt the database will be available to all and sundry, there is a thing call "EMBARGO" and untill they are finished you won't get the scraps) so on that side AB's "raison d'etre" is safe for the very good reason that most of us are doing this for our own purposes and not competing for who's got the deepest integration or the widest possible view or whatever is that drives them (maybe few pointless gongs too). Otherwise AB would be a plaything of the wealthy and I don't see that as a viable business model. 

"Panta Rei" is the way to see all of this. Everything will be lost in the tide of Time.

Timothy Martin:
Did the Vera Rubin Observatory just put us all out of business? 10 meter focal length at F1.2 with a 3200 megapixel camera and a 3.5-degree field of view--and it will shoot the entire southern hemisphere every few days.  It pretty much kills every scope I have in just about every way. I'm not sure why we should even do this any more. Please tell me why I'm overreacting 

https://rubinobservatory.org/

No, you’re not overreacting.

It’s clear that we share the same view here – we’re in astrophotography not for fun but for sports.

Personal development, joy, self-satisfaction and learning experience? Bullshit. We’re here to win, not to take some f***ing journey!

Since the first light of my trusty Skywatcher 72ED Pro, I knew what I wanted. IOTD is for losers. Hubble and JWST are what competitive and rational people, such as you and me, should be after. It’s really sad that Astrobin does not offer enough emphasis on competition and winning.

Now, this Vera Rubin Observatory (LSST)... 10-meter focal length at F1.2, a collective area of 35 square meters funneling photons to a massive 3.2-gigapixel camera, the ability to survey vast areas of the sky with remarkable depth? All this in Bortle 1 skies?

Haha!

In the last couple of years, I closely followed LSST’s progress. I had enough time to study its weaknesses and come up with ways to beat it.

First thing first – PORTABILITY.With my Skywatcher 72ED Pro, mounted on an iOptron GEM28 I can go wherever the heck I want. Bortle 9 skies? Yes, sir! Good luck doing the same with a primary mirror weighting 16 tons and a 3-ton camera.

Second – INTEGRATION TIME. The Rubin Observatory will take about 15-second exposures with ~100 visits to each location per year. This comes to a total integration time of 4.17 hours per location for the 10-year duration of the survey. Even at F1.2 this is still... meh?! You, my friend, have the ability to spend HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of hours on a single target carefully accumulating signal and crafting the final image exactly as you envision it.

Third is COVERAGE. The Rubin Observatory faces constraints that your setup doesn't. It's locked into a specific survey pattern and timing - it can't linger on that perfect night when seeing is exceptional, or wait for optimal lunar phases for a particular target. You have the flexibility to adapt your imaging plans based on conditions, seasons, and your personal interests. Additionally, the observatory is optimized for the southern hemisphere i.e. declinations covered -72° to +12°. This means northern targets won't be covered with the same depth and frequency.

By the way, have you heard of Greenland Remote Observatories? No? Time to start googling.

I hope this helps! If you decide to move on, which I can only hope for, I’ll happily take your equipment. Free of charge.

Warm regards and take care.

4.0 Pickleball player checking in here…. I play pickleball and do astrophotography.   I'm not sure what the intent of the question was here, but if you start playing pickleball, there is a good chance you will then have two addictions….. astrophotography and pickleball.