NASA SOHO/LASCO2 comet challenge on AWS

The SOHO/LASCO data set (prepared for the challenge hosted in Topcoder) provided here comes from the instrument’s C2 telescope and comprises approximately 36,000 images spread across 2,950 comet observations. The human eye is a very sensitive tool and it is the only tool currently used to reliably detect new comets in SOHO data - particularly comets that are very faint and embedded in the instrument background noise. Bright comets can be easily detected in the LASCO data by relatively simple automated algorithms, but the majority of comets observed by the instrument are extremely faint, noise-level observations. Comets in SOHO/LASCO data are dynamic and morphologically diverse objects, and thus computationally highly complex to detect and track.

本数据集——SOHO/LASCO数据集（为Topcoder举办的挑战赛所准备），源自C2望远镜的仪器，包含大约36,000张图像，涵盖2,950次彗星观测。人类视觉是一项极为灵敏的探测工具，目前它是唯一用于在SOHO数据中可靠地探测新彗星的手段——特别是那些非常微弱且嵌入仪器背景噪声中的彗星。在LASCO数据中，明亮的彗星可以通过相对简单的自动化算法轻松探测到，但仪器观测到的彗星中，大部分都是非常微弱的、接近噪声水平的观测。SOHO/LASCO数据中的彗星是动态且形态多样的天体，因此其检测与追踪的计算过程极为复杂。