Note on all sky maps at radio frequencies – correlations, registration, collaboration

Richard,

I was visiting http://sundog.stsci.edu/first/images.html looking for the current best radio map of the whole sky.  There are many groups making their own radio telescopes, and I thought it would be a good idea to register their intensities and coordinates against some reference.  Your page showed up “First”, but I don’t know enough about the radio astronomy community to know what is current.

I do see a lot of cross hatching in the image.  I don’t think that is real.  And perhaps the groups could help fill in.  I was recommending the new groups not “cherry picK” chasing after every cute things and picture – but start with continuous mapping to calibrate their instruments, combine with others nearby, teach basics of correlation and data handling, and getting their websites and data flows working smoothly.

Look at this map done with a low cost system.  Yes, it can be improved, but what can’t?  I suggested he run continuously and archive.  The strips from day to day will begin to add up, and he can jink his direction to subsample.  If you have years ahead, then just looking at the same things will accumulate and improve.  I am recommending the same thing for all sky camera groups, and for some looking to serve astronomy clubs, and the hundreds of thousand of school programs that are all doing their own thing and not getting very far.

Is it OK if I download the images from https://archive.stsci.edu/pub/vla_first/data/ ??

Please note: I had to change the link (go to http://sundog.stsci.edu/first/images.html) and change it from FTP to HTTPS. The browsers (Chrome particularly) will no longer accept ftp sites. They often don’t say anything, just hang.  The FTP protocol is neither secure on either end, nor as well tracked.  Your image server is clumsy and hard to use.

Your directory at https://archive.stsci.edu/pub/ is visible but empty. Not sure what is going on.

I would be more impressed with this effort (http://sundog.stsci.edu/first/description.html) if you would allocate smaller resources and do it continuously all over the world. For teaching, and for better coverage.  You cannot get global communities to work together if only a few get to work on things.  So deliberately break it up where everyone contributes and everyone has seamless access to the whole — especially visualization development and algorithm development.

I am trying to standardize all the programming language and formats for the Internet.  I can’t do it for people and groups. But I can help here and there and make suggestions.  I have been at this for 23 years (this month is the 23rd anniversary).  I had hoped that the Internet would self organize. But human greed trumps the needs of society every time.

I have been downloading and checking all sky maps.  I want to encourage local observers (including many larger ones) to share the information with everyone. But there is a lot of “cherry picking” when the basic information is not getting to everyone. So billions of people are spending years trying to get basic information about the sky and tens of millions trying to learn the tools, when it could be seamlessly available to everyone. That is what I do, but it is not hard, just tedious.

Richard Collins, Director, The Internet Foundation