UC Berkeley Shuts down the Allen Array till 2013

[TomWoolford]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/04/25/seti/index.html?hpt=C1

Anyone know anything more about this?

 

[Careface]

I don't know much about it, but according to the staff blog on the SETI site, it's not going to affect us in the least.. Does kinda suck, though

 

[HankB]

As near as I can tell, there are a couple of unrelated projects with SETI in the name. We participate in SETI@HOME which seems to have no relationship with the work going on with the Allen instrument.

I still hate to see science shut down due to lack of funding. My fear is we'll see a lot more of that before we get through this patch.

But we can still keep SETI@HOME crunching along.

 

[QuietIce]

Science is almost always the first thing to get cut when the budget gets tight.

We participate in SETI@HOME which seems to have no relationship with the work going on with the Allen instrument.

That's correct. All the SETI@Home data comes from the piggy-back unit at Arecibo. The article was slightly misleading that way, lumping the Arecibo time into the other arrays in Australia and West Virginia. SETI doesn't actually "share" telescope time at Arecibo, except every 4-5 years for specific observations.

Currently, Project SERENDIP data is what we process using SETI@Home. ... Project SERENDIP uses its own receiver mounted above the main receiver at Arecibo. Instead of using actual radio telescope time, SERENDIP processes radio signals from wherever the dish happens to be pointed and doesn't interfere with normal dish operations. Since SERENDIP is an all-sky survey individual targeting of stars is not required, so this “piggy-back” method of observation is an ideal solution combining the valuable observational power of the Arecibo dish with a relatively low-cost data collection method since individual dish time is not needed.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6304545&postcount=3

 

[TomWoolford]

Okay so what I'm getting out of that is that the data we get from Arecibo is just basically a mirror image of what someone else has the array pointed at. Seti@home doesn't get to pick and choose where they're looking in the nights sky they just get whatever someone else is looking at and works off of that data?

 

[eaglescouter]

Seti@Home posts information about the Allen Array shutdown:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=63888#1100648

 

[QuietIce]

Okay so what I'm getting out of that is that the data we get from Arecibo is just basically a mirror image of what someone else has the array pointed at. Seti@home doesn't get to pick and choose where they're looking in the nights sky they just get whatever someone else is looking at and works off of that data?

SETI@Home is always looking at whatever patch of sky is being observed but it's never been clear to me whether SETI is just copying the data being gathered (by whomever) or if they have their own receivers picking up different frequencies than what is being observed at the time. I lean toward the latter but haven't seen anything definitive to back up that feeling.

Since Project SERENDIP is an all-sky survey it really doesn't matter what order the sky is surveyed as long as it all gets observed at some point or another.

 

[HankB]

SETI@Home is always looking at whatever patch of sky is being observed but it's never been clear to me whether SETI is just copying the data being gathered (by whomever) or if they have their own receivers picking up different frequencies than what is being observed at the time. I lean toward the latter but haven't seen anything definitive to back up that feeling.

I thought I had read that somewhere as well. However, following this issue is the first time I have learned that that there are multiple independent SETI projects. As near as I can tell, SETI used to use instruments when other observations were not being performed and then at some point they bought their own receiver. At that point, they were constrained to view whatever the main experiment was observing, but they could collect signals using their own instrument. From one phrase I quote from the following article, that seems to have actually happened before SETI@Home was formed:

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/setiathome/setiathome_20090526.html

When Dan Werthimer and David Anderson launched SETI@home in 1999, SERENDIP had already been in operation for two decades. At Arecibo it had its own dedicated radio feed, used exclusively for SETI purposes. This arrangement suited SETI@home very well, and the new project took full advantage of the infrastructure that was already in place for SERENDIP. For several years the two projects shared the same radio feed and analyzed the same data from space – each in its own distinct way. Finally in 2005 they parted ways, when SETI@home was adapted to the new multi-beam ALFA receiver whereas SERENDIP continued to operate with its own dedicated radio feed.

There's more info at http://www.planetary.org/programs/p...hnologies/setiathome/setiathome_20060814.html from which I quote:

With regard to the multibeam ALFA receiver:

Technically, since Werthimer's group will at no time be controlling the telescope, SETI will still be "piggy backing" on the observations of others.

The situation seems to not be so simple as piggy-backing vs. having their own receiver since they share the ALFA receiver with others in the ALFA consortium.

I'm glad that's not a test question.

 

[QuietIce]

Man, I didn't realize I had gotten so far behind in my reading. Sorry to lead you astray.


Good links, though, and where I did most of the research for the History article I wrote. At one time I was a TPS member and ran the original S@H screen saver for a couple of years.

 

[HankB]

Man, I didn't realize I had gotten so far behind in my reading. Sorry to lead you astray.


Good links, though, and where I did most of the research for the History article I wrote. At one time I was a TPS member and ran the original S@H screen saver for a couple of years.

No need to apologize. It's a pretty complex story. If you have a choice between helping folks in the AMD forum vs. keeping track of what SETI is doing, my vote goes to the AMD forum. You'll actualy do SETI more good there in fact.

 

[razorface]

Don't know if everyone has seen this, an interesting 'info-graphic' on the relative costs of the SETI program.

https://flic.kr/p/9DCegw

 

[QuietIce]

Don't know if everyone has seen this, an interesting 'info-graphic' on the relative costs of the SETI program.

https://flic.kr/p/9DCegw

I like it - but it's sad, too ...