Starship Asterisk*

CONCAMs have historically been limited to places with internet connections, usually GOOD internet connections to handle the high bandwidth of uncompressed data. Now with PHOTZIP compression CONCAMs can send back useful FITS files even with a relatively low badwidth internet connection.

Could such a bad internet connection now come from a cell phone? Previously, cell phones would have cost too much to connect. It would not be economically feasible to use a cell phone throughout a night at $1 per minute, for example. But recently I am hearing many ads by cell phone companies advertising "unlimited minutes plans". Couple this with the fact that CONCAMs use these minutes only at local nighttime, and perhaps now a CONCAM can go anywhere within hailing distance of a cell phone tower.

Any thoughts?

- RJN

It seems that this could only apply to locations where there is signal.

How fast of a transfer rate would we need? Alltel quotes their internet at 14.4 Kb/s.

Vic Muzzin wrote:How fast of a transfer rate would we need? Alltel quotes their internet at 14.4 Kb/s.

That's not fast enough. Even a small archive of files which is 500 KB will take about 10 minutes to upload.

Vic Muzzin I completely think just like you.

RJN wrote:CONCAMs have historically been limited to places with internet connections, usually GOOD internet connections to handle the high bandwidth of uncompressed data. Now with PHOTZIP compression CONCAMs can send back useful FITS files even with a relatively low badwidth internet connection.

Could such a bad internet connection now come from a cell phone? Previously, cell phones would have cost too much to connect. It would not be economically feasible to use a cell phone throughout a night at $1 per minute, for example. But recently I am hearing many ads by cell phone companies advertising "unlimited minutes plans". Couple this with the fact that CONCAMs use these minutes only at local nighttime, and perhaps now a CONCAM can go anywhere within hailing distance of a cell phone tower.

Any thoughts?

- RJN

It's true that the CONCAM provide good internet connections and after some research I fund that the the main point of calibrating the experiential magnitudes is to flatten the curve of VMag-logbrt. It appears that the CMag algorithm is a good first-order approximation across the whole survey. Destruction the logbrt-CMag curve should give the second-order residuals for the image at hand. Or, if the same residuals keep coming up, a global refinement of the CMag calculation would simplify efforts. This process should be independent of which metric is used. Also, the bulk zenith distance versus logbrt should give a quick reading of the atmospheric extinction for that.

Yes my friend do you know ConCam also saves the sky. In an artical I read that a much smaller and less expensive instrument, developed by astrophysicist Bob Nemiroff, is slowly spreading to observatories around the world. ConCam (CONtinuous CAMera) consists of a digital camera with a fisheye lens controlled by a laptop computer. All of this fits in a weatherproof carrier the size of a large briefcase. Bolted to a rooftop, with an Internet connection, ConCam delivers images of the night sky every four minutes.

Ok friends, I am in India. I want to send some information to my university which is in London. The time is different. So if I send a fax, but all of the staff are not in the office. Can the fax machine receive the information automatically? And I do not know how to send fax. I only need to press the fax number which is the university's,and then I can send the fax? Should I do other things?

Dont worry about this matter.As the 3G cell phone network is grown up.I think the cost of comunication would be low down but with more and more service.