Seeking volunteers to classify cosmic ray detections using CMOS sensors - Forums

Hi all.

Back in February 2025, I started a project on detecting cosmic rays using standard CMOS sensors. The goal is to turn CMOS devices into precise and reliable tools for observing cosmic rays. I’ve made significant progress, and I recently created a Zooniverse project to help classify the detections, which will later be used to train a neural network for more complex classification tasks. However, since I’m not a professional researcher, my project can’t appear publicly on the Zooniverse project page and can only be accessed via a direct link.

I’m therefore looking for volunteers willing to help classify the numerous subjects in the Zooniverse project. If you’re interested in participating, feel free to send me a private message. I’ll share a Discord link (for security) where you can access the project and meet the other volunteers. Also, feel free to ask questions about the project and on the topic itself.

Thanks for reading.

Hi,

Sounds interesting but I have not got many visible cosmic ray impacts in my images so far.

How is this about turning a CMOS camera into a cosmic ray detector. Can you elaborate here or is it more explained in the Discord chat?

I have two mounts equipped with 2 telescopes each and when one is imaging DSO the other telescope could detect cosmic rays.

Hi.

The goal of the project is to create an algorithms capable of accurately classifying the different types of detections w’e’re making with CMOS sensors. It helps with discarding detections that are not produced by comsic rays-related particles. This actually the biggest limitation we’re facing at the moment, because a large majority of the detections come from local sources of ionizing radiation.

There’s more info on the project itself on Zooniverse, which is linked to the discord. The server itself is just used to communicate easily with the contributors. There’s no need to produce data at the moment because we have already gathered more than 2000 hours of Darks for this.

Hope that helped,

Yoships

Yoships · Dec 23, 2025, 12:24 AM
Hi.
The goal of the project is to create an algorithms capable of accurately classifying the different types of detections w’e’re making with CMOS sensors. It helps with discarding detections that are not produced by comsic rays-related particles. This actually the biggest limitation we’re facing at the moment, because a large majority of the detections come from local sources of ionizing radiation.
There’s more info on the project itself on Zooniverse, which is linked to the discord. The server itself is just used to communicate easily with the contributors. There’s no need to produce data at the moment because we have already gathered more than 2000 hours of Darks for this.
Hope that helped,
Yoships

OK, so you do not need more volunteers. 👍️

I need volunteers to help classify the detections.

Rainer Ehlert · Dec 23, 2025, 02:13 AM
OK, so you do not need more volunteers

Generally on Zooniverse researchers have a bunch of photographs or videos that they want humans to classify. So assuming this is like other projects, you’d be looking at images. I don’t know how this one is set up, but many would want you to classify if the image has any cosmic rays, how many, and where they are.

Other astro related projects I’ve participated in were things like looking for exoplanets or things like that. Then zooniverse has other projects like classifying animals in trail cam pictures or transcribing old written documents.

Yoships · Dec 23, 2025, 02:23 AM
I need volunteers to help classify the detections.

And how would that work?

Yoships · Dec 11, 2025 at 06:53 PM
I’m therefore looking for volunteers willing to help classify the numerous subjects in the Zooniverse project. If you’re interested in participating, feel free to send me a private message. I’ll share a Discord link (for security) where you can access the project and meet the other volunteers

I’m happy to help. Won’t be able to spend hours and hours looking but I can jump on for a little while here and there over the next couple of days as work has slowed right down before the Christmas break.

Rainer Ehlert · Dec 23, 2025, 02:37 AM
Yoships · Dec 23, 2025, 02:23 AM
I need volunteers to help classify the detections.
And how would that work?

The classification task is pretty basic and simple. You will see an image containing a detection flagged by my algorithm, and you will be asked about it’s morphology (everything is explained in the field guide of the project), and there’s only one detection per image.

Interesting stuff. I thought Cosmic Rays were quite sporadic and so yesterday while getting some images at Arp 28 or NGC 7678 I did let run my Saturn-M SQR mounted on my Solar scope. I made 300s exposures for every image and got 13 images.

In every single image except one from the 13 images I have got Cosmic rays impacts. In one single image I even got 6 of them…

CosmicRays_00011.jpg

Rainer Ehlert · Dec 23, 2025, 06:50 PM
Interesting stuff. I thought Cosmic Rays were quite sporadic and so yesterday while getting some images at Arp 28 or NGC 7678 I did let run my Saturn-M SQR mounted on my Solar scope. I made 300s exposures for every image and got 13 images.
In every single image except one from the 13 images I have got Cosmic rays impacts. In one single image I even got 6 of them…
CosmicRays_00011.jpg

Most of those detections (on the jpg) come from local radiation.

Yoships · Dec 23, 2025, 09:38 PM
Most of those detections (on the jpg) come from local radiation.

Like what? Thanks

Rainer Ehlert · Dec 23, 2025, 10:58 PM
Yoships · Dec 23, 2025, 09:38 PM
Most of those detections (on the jpg) come from local radiation.
Like what? Thanks

It’s very mostly beta radiation, low energy electrons. This is what’s producing those curved tracks in darks. It’s also possible to observe alpha particles, helium nuclei, but those are extremly rare. They produce very very bright spots (near saturation). The rest (straight tracks) are produced by cosmic muons.

Yoships · Dec 24, 2025, 01:42 AM
Rainer Ehlert · Dec 23, 2025, 10:58 PM
Yoships · Dec 23, 2025, 09:38 PM
Most of those detections (on the jpg) come from local radiation.
Like what? Thanks
It’s very mostly beta radiation, low energy electrons. This is what’s producing those curved tracks in darks. It’s also possible to observe alpha particles, helium nuclei, but those are extremly rare. They produce very very bright spots (near saturation). The rest (straight tracks) are produced by cosmic muons.

Please show me some images of cosmic rays in images so I can classify them better.

Thanks

Rainer Ehlert · Dec 23, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Yoships · Dec 23, 2025, 09:38 PM
Most of those detections (on the jpg) come from local radiation.
Like what? Thanks

Some kinds of stone and concrete can emit beta particles, I remember creating a darks library with and Atik 383L in my garage with a concrete floor and the darks were full of these. Redid the darks out on the lawn and there were none.

Rainer Ehlert · Dec 24, 2025, 02:04 AM
Please show me some images of cosmic rays in images so I can classify them better.
Thanks

There are plenty of examples and related information on the Zooniverse project.

Yoships · Dec 24, 2025, 04:45 PM
Rainer Ehlert · Dec 24, 2025, 02:04 AM
Please show me some images of cosmic rays in images so I can classify them better.
Thanks
There are plenty of examples and related information on the Zooniverse project.

Thanks