the role of computer vision in astronomy
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The Role of Computer Vision in Astronomy. Rob Fergus New York University. Overview. Virtually all our knowledge about the universe derived from measurements of photons Usually as images Big astronomy project is $50M-200M But only 1-2% of this on software - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
The Role of Computer Vision in Astronomy
Rob FergusNew York University
Overview
• Virtually all our knowledge about the universe derived from measurements of photons– Usually as images
• Big astronomy project is $50M-200M– But only 1-2% of this on software
• Just discovering techniques from computer vision & machine learning
Astrometry.net
Lang, Hogg, Mierle, Blanton & Roweis, [The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 137, 2010]
• Input: image of sky
• Output: – Absolute position – List of objects
• Geometric hashing(quads of stars)– Lamdan & Wolfson
[ICCV’88]
• Widely used by pros & amateurs
Removing Atmospheric Distortions
Hirsch, Harmeling, Sra & Schölkopf , [Astronomy & Astrophysics 2011]
• Ground-based telescopes look through atmosphere
• Blind (online) estimation of atmospheric distortion and true image
• Far better than “lucky” imaging (current approach)
Hirsch, Sra, Schölkopf & Harmeling, [CVPR 2010]
Exoplanet Imaging• Want to image planets around other stars
• Need contrast ratio >1010
for Earth-like planets
• Diffraction in telescope– Light from star obscures planet
• Deconvolution problem– Big assistance from optical design Crepp et al.,
[Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 729, 2011].
Galaxy / Star Classification
Star vs Galaxy
[Sloan Digital Sky Survey]
Galaxy / Star Classification• Distinguish stars from galaxies• SVM-based models
– Smith et al. [A & A, Vol. 522, 2010]
• Generative model of galaxies– Lang et al. [In preparation]
Stars
Galaxies
Data Model
Future Directions
• UnifiedBayesian model
• Propagateuncertaintyfrom pixels
• Physics-informedpriors
Funded by NSF CDI
Cosmology
• Bayesian approaches to fitting high-level cosmological models
http://cmml2011.wikispaces.com/
Cosmic Ray Classification
• Raw image from Hubble Space Telescope: