Re: Correspondence with Bohden Paczynski

[Chris Albertson <chrisalbertson90278@yahoo.com>]

There is an article in the current Sky and Telescope where
Bohden Paczynski's name appears along with two "TASS-Like"
projects, thier results and the reasons for doing these types
of projects.

Good news, Bad news.  My company has approved me for paid
overtime.  Only the paid part is new.  This is their way of saying
I need to work even more.  Good news is that the new Delta IV
rocket goes up in a month then it's over.  This and an agressive
sailboat racing schedule has prevented me from finishing work
on software to do what Paczynski wants done, collect, combine
and make available the data.  In the S&T article it says his
vision is for this all to happen in real-time.  I guess a few
minutes after the shutter closes new data points appear in the
public database.  

My opinion is that while we don't really _need_ real-time, (this
is not a millitary system) doing it in real time with the level of
automation that it implies is the only way to "keep up"  Just wait
'till there are six operational Mk IV systems.  We need to use
processing methods that scale up to on order of 10E9 observations.
I think we will want to look at the millitary model of data reduction
and publishing vs. the typical scientic mode of collect data, sit on
data, publish paper.  OK if you don't like "millitary" think
"Coca Cola Bottleing plant".  Same thing.  Either way it is
"non-batch" or continous processing.  One more month 'till luanch...
.

--- Tom Droege <tdroege2@earthlink.net> wrote:
> The following is an excerpt from an e-mail I received today from
> Bohden 
> Paczynski.
> 
> >The discovery paper aboit new W UMa type star is very nice:
> beautiful
> >light curve. I do not think the discovery data alone are very
> useful.
> >There is no system anywhere that would allow anybody to conveniently
> >combine incomplete data from variouis sources. There is even no
> >system that allows a convenient access to public domain data
> (hundreds
> >of data points for quarter of a million variable stars). People are
> working
> >on such a system, but it is not here yet. It is my expectation that
> the
> >intellectual market for varaibility data will come when data will be
> >easy to access with some tools to analyze it. Again, people are
> working
> >on this problem, but it is my guess we are at least a year, more
> likely
> >two years from this goal.
> 
> Congratulations Michael, Doug, and Aaron on the appreciative comment
> from a 
> world renowned expert.  In case any of you do not recognize Bohden,
> he is a 
> Professor at Princeton.  He is known for taking the right side of the
> gamma 
> ray burst controversy, and for suggesting that gravitational lensing
> could 
> be used to search for dark matter in the universe.  Many other 
> accomplishments.  You can find his paper on why we are doing this on
> the 
> web site.
> 
> Well, I see I got my hit for Figure 1.  I could hardly get slammed by
> a 
> bigger name.  Still he has received my comments.  I will argue with
> God 
> when he/she does not like Figure 1.  We shall see who wins out in the
> end.
> 
> Tom Droege
> 
> 
> 


=====
Chris Albertson 
  Home:   310-376-1029  chrisalbertson90278@yahoo.com
  Cell:   310-990-7550
  Office: 310-336-5189  Christopher.J.Albertson@aero.org

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