V MartínJun 23

The best part of #RubinFirstLook: the exquisite quality, sheer number of frames, and algorithm matching for each asteroid detection. As expected, this is game over for all other "citizen science" projects or amateur observations out there, at least for MBAs: who can beat this?

https://rubinobservatory.org/gallery/collections/first-look-gallery/5iqj02kcs14lt24j845a58n15p

Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

Show threadsimonbpJun 24

@sharponlooker To be honest that's been true for a decade already. Once Gaia was available and used by big surveys, I no longer trusted any astrometry from amateurs.

But every asteroid discovered by Rubin is a new potential target for amateur occultation observers. Occultations are something that simply requires a lot of small telescopes and people trained to use them, and that's where the amateur community comes in.

Show threadV MartínJun 24
@simonbp @michael_w_busch @TMEubanks I was being too hyperbolic in the post, of course I understand there's space for endless discoveries outside this data firehose, but I was trying to convey the combined feeling of awe and expectations with the slight despair that people might feel at the sight of a fun-destroying "discovery machine" (sic) 😉
1/2
Show threadV Martín
@simonbp @michael_w_busch @TMEubanks Personally, I used to like mindlessly classifying in the different Catalina survey zooniverse projects, already dreading how useless it would feel when Rubin data would start to come in, but to actually see the huge quality of the detections was "the last straw". It will be interesting to see what kind of contribution people will be able to do with the promised Rubin zooniverse projects. 2/2
Jun 24 at 7:37amWeb