Computing evolutions

Mark this point in time as a turning point in computer evolution. Look at these links...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for-everyone

http://www.adapteva.com/

These Adapteva guys have achieved thumb nail sized parallel processing chips with 16, 64, and soon 1024 CPU on board. Add one to your Mobile or add a few to your standard computer. I want one now, but the OS and generalised software is yet to catch up. Expect full desktop, laptop, and tablets to be using these in the next two years or sooner... check out the cost/performance ...

20121114 Eclipse from Melbourne

Eclipse day, blue Sky's here in Melbourne...

The car had chucked a wobbly, the hot water system also chucked a wobbly, so unable to go north with the crowds. So, used the solar viewer I had made for the Venus transit.

 

Missed Totality by this much.....Third-ality.... some sun spots

 

Comet 168P via Itelescope T5

This is a recent view of Comet 168P via Itelescope T5, using a R-filter and 45sec frames.
I am not sure what the little flash is about. It is part of the raw image data, and still visible in calibrated images on the right hand side. I don't think it is part of the comet. Could be a cosmic hit on the sensor or perhaps a micro meteor burst? or a strange internal reflection?

Fun with Radio Meteors

Update -20121116- New Features in my software.
Well, The  dynamic level setting, was to complicated and unnecessary. The better way to detect events that helps with event visualisation is more sensitive. Even the small ones can be counted .
This has also simplified the interface controls.

A simpler interface

 

A collection of shapes and sizes

 Update -20121114- New Features in my software.
The interface now has dynamic level setting so that only high level events are triggered. Found a better way to detect events, helps with event visualisation . Added a Pingo Meter to the right hand side. ...

 
Update -20121112- New Features in my software.
The interface now has dynamic level setting so that only high level events are triggered. Also added a colourgram counter. A few more features in mind....

Update -20121025 - Mostly small and a few large meteors

Add caption

Update 20121023 -  If you don't want to do the programing with my little script.
Then this is the software that the big guys are using , ARGO can be found here
http://www.sdradio.eu/weaksignals/argo/index.html
It works with the Spaceweather audio stream just as mine does. Have fun......

UPDate: 20121022 - While watching the Audio trace from Space Weather Radio, this large burst happened by. Not sure what type of burst this was, usually they are spikes.

Large dispersed meteor trail....

What Roswell Radio saw......Image rights to Roswell Meteor

 

Original post -

Remember my  post "Fun With Geminids 2010". It was a bit complicated to get working.
I have been using Processing.org software lately, lots of fun. There are a few examples of how to show an audio spectra gram in real time.



Me whistling...

 With this little gem of code,  LiveSpectrogram -  Takes successive FFTs and renders them onto the screen as gray scale, scrolling left.  From Dan Ellis dpwe@ee.columbia.edu 2010-01-15.

 I wrapped a simple interface and triggered image saver around it.

I have it running now, but the big meteors just don't want to happen, so here's a few I have captured during testing.

Seven meteors across 1 hour...



A medium size Meteor ..

Now, it seems to work only if you have your mic line on or a headset mic on.But, if you now go to http://spaceweatherradio.com/  and
turn on the http://topaz.streamguys.tv/~spaceweather/  audio stream.
It will trigger on the larger Meteors, if you adjust the sensitivity correctly.





A larger longer Meteor trace....

Just beware it will create a lot of images if the sensitivity is to low.
And if you make a lot of noise, whistle or speak, it will trigger also.

You will need to be vwary vwary quite when hunting radio meteors....

How to make for your self -  Download Processing.org software, load the following text  into a new sketch and save. Make a data directory under this sketch folder. Then run it.
The images appear in the sketch folder.

Have fun...... try to catch a few ..... Orionids Oct 21-22, 2012  
.......hat tip to  http://astroblogger.blogspot.com.au/...





 ---------------------\/\/\/\/\/\/ cut here \/\/\/\/\/\/ -----------------
/**
 *** Radio Meteor Counter **** agw 20121021 ****
 *** modified from
 *
 * LiveSpectrogram
 * Takes successive FFTs and renders them onto the screen as grayscale, scrolling left.
 *
 * Dan Ellis dpwe@ee.columbia.edu 2010-01-15
  */

import ddf.minim.analysis.*;
import ddf.minim.*;

Minim minim;
AudioInput in;
FFT fft;
int colmax = 400;
int rowmax = 256;
int[][] sgram = new int[rowmax][colmax];
int[][] sgramb = new int[rowmax][colmax+1];
int col;
int leftedge;
int count = 0 ;
int sgwt = 0 ;
int sens = 155;
int lvl = 0;
int lvlm = 0;
int trig = 99 ;
String  mode = "AUTO";
//
PFont fontA = createFont("Verdana", 12);
 //

 
void setup()
{
  size(colmax+ 150, rowmax+125, P3D);
 // colorMode(RGB, 255);
   background(0);
  noStroke();
  frameRate(100);
 
  //
 fontA = loadFont("CourierNew-12.vlw");

  //
  textFont(fontA, 12);
  textMode(SCREEN);
  textAlign(LEFT);
  //
  //
   minim = new Minim(this);
  
  in = minim.getLineIn(Minim.STEREO,2048);

  fft = new FFT(in.bufferSize(), in.sampleRate());
  fft.window(FFT.HAMMING);
}

void draw()
{
 // background(0);
   // perform a forward FFT on the samples in the input buffer
  fft.forward(in.mix);
  for(int i = 0; i < rowmax /* fft.specSize() */; i++)
  {
  // fill in the new column of spectral values
    sgram[i][col] = (int)Math.round(Math.max(0,2*20*Math.log10(1000*fft.getBand(i))));
     sgramb[i][col+1] = (int)Math.round(Math.max(0,2*20*Math.log10(1000*fft.getBand(i))));
    //
    if ( sgramb[i][col] >= sens) {
      //
      count++;
      trig = 10;
      //
     }
     fill(0, sgram[i][col], 255);
     rect(460, 381, 5, -((sgram[i][col]*2)));
    //
    //
  }
  // next time will be the next column
  col = col + 1;
 
  // wrap back to the first column when we get to the end
  if (col == colmax) { col = 0; }
   
  // Draw points. 
  // leftedge is the column in the ring-filled array that is drawn at the extreme left
  // start from there, and draw to the end of the array
  for (int i = 0; i < colmax-leftedge; i++) {
     for (int j = 0; j < rowmax; j++) {
      //
     // sgwt =(sgram[j][i+leftedge])-(sgramb[j][255]);
      //stroke(sgwt);
      stroke(sgram[j][i+leftedge]);
      //
      point(i,height-j);
     //rect(i,height-j,2,2);
     }
  }
  // Draw the rest of the image as the beginning of the array (up to leftedge)
  for (int i = 0; i < leftedge; i++) {
    for (int j = 0; j < rowmax; j++) {
      //
      stroke(sgram[j][i]);
       point(i+colmax-leftedge,height-j);
     //rect(i+colmax-leftedge,height-j,2,2);
    }
  }
  // Next time around, we move the left edge over by one, to have the whole thing
  // scroll left
  leftedge = leftedge + 1;
  // Make sure it wraps around
  if (leftedge == colmax) { leftedge = 0; }
 
  // Add frequency axis labels
 int x = colmax + 5; // to right of spectrogram display
 stroke(255);
 line(x,0,x,height); // vertical line
  // Make text appear centered relative to specified x,y point
 textAlign(LEFT,CENTER);
 for (float freq = 0.0; freq < in.sampleRate()/2; freq += 500.0) {
   int y = height - fft.freqToIndex(freq); // which bin holds this frequency?
    line(x,y,x+3,y); // add tick mark
   text(Math.round(freq)+" Hz", x+5, y); // add text label
 }
   // zoom around mouse
  //copy((mouseX-25), (mouseY-25), 50, 50, 1, 1, 100, 100);
  fill(0, 0, 0);
  rect(1, 1, 465, 120);
  fill(255, 255, 255);
   //
    lvlm = mouseY-125;
    if(lvlm < 0){ lvlm = 0 ;}
    if (lvlm > 255) { lvlm =255;}
    lvl = sgramb[lvlm][395] ;
  //
  text(mouseX+" "+mouseY+" "+lvl, 10,10 );
  userinfo() ;
  //text( date()+" "+time());
  // 395 338 main ffequency location.
  if (trig <= 10) {
    copy(335, 125, 75, 256, 475, 125, 75, 256);
    fill(0, 0, 0);
    rect(475, 1, 72, 120);
    fill(255, 255, 255);
    text(mode+"\nSENS\n"+sens+"\nMtR\n"+count+"\n"+trig, 480,50);
    trig-=1 ;
    //
    if (trig == 1) {
        saveimg();
        trig = 0 ;
        }
      }
  
    if (trig <= 0) {
      trig = 99 ;
     }
   }

void keyPressed() {
  //
   if (key =='x') {
    exit();
  }
  if (key =='c') {
    count = 0;
    background(0);
    text(mode+"\nSENS\n"+sens+"\nMtR\n"+count, 480,50);
  }
   if (key =='-') {
    sens-=1 ;
   background(0);
   text(mode+"\nSENS\n"+sens+"\nMtR\n"+count, 480,50);
  }
   if (key =='=') {
    sens+=1 ;
    background(0);
    text(mode+"\nSENS\n"+sens+"\nMtR\n"+count, 480,50);
   }
   if (key =='m') {
    if (mode == "AUTO") { mode = "MANU"; }
     else { mode = "AUTO"; }
    background(0);
    text(mode+"\nSENS\n"+sens+"\nMtR\n"+count, 480,50);
   }
}
void saveimg() {
      saveFrame("Meteor-####.jpg");
}
void userinfo() {
   //
   textFont(fontA, 14);
   text("RADIO METEOR COUNTER\n"+"[E(x)it][Sensitivity -(-)/+(=)]\n"+"[(C)lear counter][(M)ode AUTO/MANU ]", 50, 50 );
   textFont(fontA, 12);
   //
}
void stop()
{
  // always close Minim audio classes when you finish with them
  in.close();
  minim.stop();

  super.stop();
 }

 ---------------------/\/\/\/\/\ cut here /\/\/\/\/\-----------------



SDO CME launch

A Large prominence that had rotated around from the edges of the sun as viewed from earth and SDO was actually a long filament of suspended plasma. The above picture is the  filament erupting from the surface due to hotter material being released below it. See it in motion...

The early days , http://youtu.be/xjwDTx6EMZE?hd=1, a stable large prominence
A wide view, http://helioviewer.org/?movieId=N1f55  , note the red matter is released
A closer view, http://helioviewer.org/?movieId=21f55

The CME launches through the SOHO C2 and C3 imagers.

 

image data courtesy of Helioviewer/SDO/NASA and LASCO/SOHO/NRL

SDO Spinning Plasma

SDO Spinning Plasma is seen here in this extended movie I have created from a sequence of Helioviewer movies. This is why I really like opacity blended Helioviewer movies.
How many states of Plasma are there?
Why are some in motion and others stay in globule like forms?
Why did the spinning start?
I hope some one is writing a good book that explains this stuff.
The upload video compression has affected the quality, I'll try a different upload point and link to it soon. Try this link, http://youtu.be/6tuyT4RkG9U

Make your own version at Helioviewer, it will look much better.
Amazing Image data courtesy of SDO/Helioviewer/NASA

SDO + Helioviewer = A colourful SUN

image data courtesy of NASA/SDO/Helioviewer processed by Me.

The Internet lets you do some amazing things these days. Lots of astronomy related citizen science and crowd sourcing projects can keep you busy almost 24 hours a day. The Sungrazer project has allowed me to discover over thirty comets, and has resulted with my name being mentioned in a few scientific papers. Just being an observer or a science image browser can be very satisfying. When you let the big guys know about what you have seen, then sometimes they recognise that a new piece of the grand puzzle has been found.

A not so new place to look at scientific images of the SUN is the web based Helioviewer. This site allows you to look at the almost real time images being generated by the Solar Dynamics Observatory , SDO. You can see images at a number of  different wavelengths and create single images or even long sequence animations. The amount of detail to be seen, and very interesting solar structures, when animated make my jaw drop every time.

Generally, the different wavelength images are presented in false colours, red, blue, yellow and the like. What I want to show you here is a feature of the Helioviewer site that lets you move beyond plain red blue or yellow images and sequences. Using the opacity slider with up to three wavelengths results in very interesting images that I think show more details and the direct relationships between the dynamic structural features. Features seen in one wavelength are sometimes not seen in other wavelengths, when merged in to an opacity blended set of images the relationship becomes apparent.

So what colours look good, I like these sets of image wavelengths, lots of structure to be seen.

And then when you make an small movie of a few days a spinning sun looks amazing.

follow these links for a better view in Helioviewer

http://helioviewer.org/?movieId=0yY55

http://helioviewer.org/?movieId=yyY55

http://helioviewer.org/?movieId=lyY55

Here is the settings in the Helioviewer Images tool that I have used here.

 Note the position of the Opacity slider.

Have fun...