Disk Detective Talk

General object questions

  • meeka777 by meeka777

    Hi! I had a couple of general questions about the objects we are sorting through:

    I know these are all pretty far away, but are they all about the same distance? Also, semi-related, how was the size of the red circle to select good candidates determined?

    Is there anything to be gained from all of the objects that aren't good candidates (the galaxies and others)?

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  • lrebull by lrebull scientist, translator, admin

    The objects are all over the place in terms of distances, from relatively nearby stars to distant galaxies. So, no, they are not at all about the same distance.

    The size of the circle was determined at least in part by the resolution of the WISE bands - 2 things close together can be counted as just one object in WISE. That circle is very roughly the distance at which to worry.

    Yes, as someone else on Talk said recently, one person's garbage is another person's treasure. Other scientists are interested in the galaxies we "throw away." 😃

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  • onetimegolfer by onetimegolfer

    V mag= Who;What;When and where? Even if it is listed on Simbad sheet.
    distance to target: what is the designator

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  • aspringer by aspringer

    When asked if not round in DSS2 or 2MASS images does it mean in both DSS2 and 2MASS or in either DSS2 or 2MASS images.
    In other words does if it is round in DSS2 but not round in 2MASS how would we classify that image.

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  • thisisjaid by thisisjaid in response to aspringer's comment.

    Hi aspringer,

    Generally what you're looking for in terms of roundness is to see the object being not-round in at least 2 bands from the DSS2 and 2MASS images. So for example if an object is elongated in all of the DSS2 images, then that would be classified as not-round. If the object appears distorted differently in the different bands, it may be an observation artifact rather than an actual non-round object.

    So in short you want to look for consistency at least across 2 bands, preferably across the same image source (DSS2 or 2MASS) but it does not necessarily have to be distorted in the same way in all of the DSS2 and 2MASS images.

    For all that and some examples, check out http://blog.diskdetective.org/2015/03/05/the-disk-detective-faq/

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