Provide a
powerful platform and people will do amazing things with it. The latest
example: The "Blind
Astrometry Server", a piece of internet software that pulls images
from the Astrometry
group on Flickr.com, analyzes those images against the Astrometry.net project's database,
and automagically figures out what parts of the sky are in the photos.
It then adds that information in a comment on Flickr and adds
Flickr tags to the image indicating the more interesting objects in the
photo. Not only do users get their sky photos analyzed this way, but
the Astrometry project gets new images to add to its database against
which to compare later images.In effect, the Blind Astrometry Server crowdsources the work of cataloguing and photographing the night sky (a public benefit), and makes it valuable to the crowd by providing a service in return, the identification and tagging of each image (an individual benefit).
I have a very high
definition photograph of part of the night sky (the Milky Way including
and above Sagittarius) taken by my friend Bryan Delodder on an
extremely slow exposure. Most slow
exposures of the night sky show the rotation of the Earth in the
apparent movement of the stars, but when Bryan took this photo he
attached his camera to a tracking telescope, not looking through the
telescope but simply moving along with the apparent movement of the
stars. The result is a long exposure (40 minutes!) in which each star
comes through as a perfect point. Far more stars are visible in the
long exposure than would otherwise be visible, because so much time was
allowed for the camera to collect the light. I'm going to ask Bryan if
an image of this is online somewhere, because I'd love it if we could
contribute it to the Astrometry.net project (and get an automated
analysis of it too).
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