Re (addition 2): [meteorite-list] re: One Find, Two Astronomers:An Ethical Brawl

From: Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Sep 19 05:56:22 2005
Message-ID: <432E8B42.1050209_at_wanadoo.nl>

> But, the matter is essentially a dead issue,
> important primarily to the individuals involved.
> I am much more interested in 2003EL61 itself!
> Its shape, for example. Now, there's a puzzle
> worthy of puzzlement.

Hi Sterling,

I agree to this, the issue of who gets discovery credit in itself is not so
important, as 50 years from now no-one wil remember it. There is however, an
accusation of scientific misconduct coupled to this case, and that is my primary
concern.

Note that I did *not* look at the URL with the observing logs myself. This
because I am involved in hunting small solar system bodies myself too, and if
ever I find a TNO (so far I found several main belt asteroids and one NEA) I
don't want to be accused of having pryed it from Brown's logs.... I based my
statements on what the logs contain, on what has been posted about that on the MPML.

The point that after they obtained the archived NEAT and POSS positions and
their own recovery data, Ortiz, Stoss et al. would not have much extra benefit
from Brown's positions, remains valid however. That they nevertheless accessed
them again, points out it was curiosity as to how their data compare to that of
Brown, i.e. the question whether it was the same object indeed.

- Marco



Sterling K. Webb wrote:
> Hi, Marco
>
> While I am far from a working knowledge
> of the astrometric procedures, no practical
> experience doing so, in other words, I note
> that in addition to the the rough pointing data
> you refer to, it appears that among the files
> accessed were the ccd processing logs.
>
> As I said earlier: "the ccd processing logs...
> are crucial too because they identify K40506A
> in the field coordinates,"
>
> That is to say objects are identified by pixel
> coordinates, i.e., 782, 349. If you have read the
> specification of their ccd, say, a 1024 square
> pixel array, you are able to pinpoint the position
> of K40506A in the field. If then, there are other
> identified objects, such as stars (which there
> are) with pixel coordinates, one is able by
> interpolation to fix the position of K40506A to
> a high degree of precision and a fair degree of
> accuracy (the two not being the same) for a
> given time of exposure (which is also in those
> logs).
>
> Even I, a refugee from the pre-calculator era,
> could do it with no resources beyond a sharp
> pencil... That is why I said the access of those
> logs was significant.
>
> But, the matter is essentially a dead issue,
> important primarily to the individuals involved.
> I am much more interested in 2003EL61 itself!
> Its shape, for example. Now, there's a puzzle
> worthy of puzzlement.
>
> Sterling K. Webb
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Marco Langbroek wrote:
>
>
>>Sterling also wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Stoss uses NEAT data, DSS and POSS data, to
>>>refine the orbit. He never uses Brown's data? Wouldn't
>>>that help refine it?
>>
>>Not at all, because the telescope log data provide you with only rough telescope
>> pointing positions, not the arcsecond accuracy object positions Ortiz' data,
>>NEAT data, DSS and POSS provided. With the Ortiz, NEAT, DSS and POSS data
>>available through Ortiz' and Stoss observing data and Stoss's image archive
>>precovery activities, the addition of Browns/SMARTS telescope log data would not
>>have improved the orbital solution at all (rather, it would probably have
>>worsened it). The SMARTS log did not contain astrometry for the object, only
>>rough telescope pointing locations.
>>
>>
>>>Yet, 20 minutes after the times of
>>>his own Mallorca observations and recovery of the
>>>object, someone at IAA is accessing Brown's positional
>>>data AGAIN.
>>>
>>> I am most curious. Why? Are they merely "curious"?
>>>At this point, they have discovery positions (2003),
>>>archival positions (NEAT, etc.), and current position
>>>(Mallorca) of "their" object. Why check someone else's
>>>data if you are not going to use it and claim that you
>>>are not even sure if it's the same object?
>>
>>As explained above, with the data they HAD at that time, Brown's data would not
>>have contributed anything valid at all to what they already had. Hence, this
>>MUST have been curiosity, yes. And understandable. There is that mysterious
>>reference to an "object" that could or could not be the same. It is
>>understandable that you compare the little that is known about that object to
>>your data.
>>
>>
>>>In fact, with what orbital
>>>data they already have, they can easily determine
>>>from Brown's data accessed the first time that it
>>>IS the same.
>>
>>They could determine that it was very likely to concern the same object. Which
>>is interesting, but holds no further meaning. Curiosity could very easily lead
>>to further comparison. The fact that they accessed the data again after
>>accumulating a much larger and much more accurate body of data themselves,
>>points out that they did not acces the data in order to use it, but rather to
>>compare. This strongly suggest the question behind this was: "is it really the
>>same object?". By contrast, if Browns data would have been the starting point
>>for finding the object in the first place, they would not have had to question
>>whether it was the same object.... For the rest, I refer to my previous mails.
>>
>>- Marco
>>
>>-----
>>Dr Marco Langbroek
>>Leiden, The Netherlands
>>
>>Volunteer image reviewer FMO Spacewatch Project
>>NEAT archive hunter
>>Admin FMO Mailing List
>>
>>e-mail: meteorites_at_dmsweb.org
>>private website http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek/asteroid.html
>>FMO Mailing List website: http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek/fmo.html
>>-----
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
-----
Dr Marco Langbroek
Dutch Meteor Society (DMS)
e-mail: meteorites_at_dmsweb.org
private website http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek
DMS website http://www.dmsweb.org
-----

Received on Mon 19 Sep 2005 05:56:18 AM PDT